


A Long, Long Time Ago on the Edge of Forever

by ArchangelBeth (Archangel_Beth)



Series: Borg of Star Trek Online [6]
Category: Star Trek Online, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AI, Except lack of friendly fire, First Contact, Force powers for everyone, Gen, MMORPG rules in effect, STO Wars, crackfic, cute droids, friendly fire is in effect, so many original characters, the Prime Directive doesn't apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-07 12:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 35,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14671590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Beth/pseuds/ArchangelBeth
Summary: (phainopepla gave me permission to do fic with Black Tide at one point, and as threatened, here is the crackfic that resulted. Because playing in other people's fanfic results in crackfic. Meanwhile, I'm using a couple of original characters that belong to sith_shenanigans...)The Na'kuhl lost their sun and became a species of time-travelers, seeking to undo the harm that was done to them. While they're not wrong in their outrage, their methods are too-often distasteful; destroying the Federation is not likely to fix the grave disservice that extinguished their sun!But, well, that's what they're trying for. And in this case, they've figured out how to go to a point in spacetime that's long, long ago... in a galaxy far, far away, where a Knight of Ren is on patrol.Naturally, Starfleet has to send someone to deal with this.





	1. The Guardian on the Edge of Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sith_shenanigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sith_shenanigans/gifts), [phainopepla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phainopepla/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Black Tide](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13271934) by [phainopepla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phainopepla/pseuds/phainopepla). 



* * *

The stone arch, set amid ruins, should have been undisturbed. It was a dangerous thing. And yet, in the last century... Well. All times were one to the Guardian. Things happened. It endured.

Some paces away, at the center of a cluster of broken pillars, a figure coalesced out of blue light and looked around with an eye that was an orb of charcoal gray sensor, and an eyepiece with a bright laser included, sparkling in the dimness on the planet. Her skin was pale, and her hair was dyed to be even darker than her eye. Her Starfleet uniform pronounced her to be a specialist in the arts of Engineering.

It wasn't long before two more figures appeared -- one from blue fire and one from green. The human one was similar in coloration to the first, though her hair was red and her uniform was Science, with a integral lens mounted over one of her charcoal sensor-orbs. The pointy-eared one was the shortest, with white hair, palest green skin, a single normal eye, and a metal plate with a sensor unit where the other would have been. She wore blue-black in an entirely different uniform (although the Romulan Republic's ship commanders tended to be unclear on the concept of _uniformity_ in their clothes), with a commander's sash over one shoulder.

She was also the one who broke into a smile first. "Fourteen!" she said, stepping forward to hug the tallest of the trio. "How have you been?"

"Hello, Ten," the black-haired one deadpanned. "Well. And you and Eight?"

"There have been regrets," Eight said, equally deadpan. "They have been bug-shaped."

"There was," Ten explained, "a Xindi-insectoid faction that decided those weird bug things, on the Lukari-Kentari colony world, were a larval form of a Xindi offshoot. They were trying to harvest the egg-crystals and transplant them to a 'safe' world."

"I had heard some of that issue," Fourteen said. "It went... messily?"

Now it was Ten's turn to assume a Vulcan-like pokerface. "The Dranzuli bugs hatched earlier than expected. They did not wish to communicate with the Xindi."

Eight said, with a hint of optimism, "We managed to save most of the Xindi! They were grateful."

"And we are pretty sure that the Dranzuli have been exterminated and aren't going to invade the planet. Also, do not try to assimilate Dranzuli."

Fourteen leveled a _look_ at the small Romulan. "Assimilation is against Starfleet regulations."

"I destroyed it before it formed a subspace transponder!" Ten insisted.

"It was very responsive to the nanites," Eight said. "Kind of creepy, really. But! Here we are, and there aren't supposed to be any more bugs of any kind!"

Fourteen eyed Ten again, as much as could be done when one had sensor-orbs for eyes. "I didn't know the Romulan Republic was in on this mission. If this is supposed to be a joint Alliance operation, shouldn't we have someone from the Klingon Empire?"

"I was in the area when Eight got the assignment." Ten resumed her Vulcan imitation. "Admiral Kererek would want me to be representing the Republic's interests. I am being proactive."

"Philip Crey," Eight said, almost spitting the name of the Temporal Intelligence agent, "doesn't get to dictate that my sister doesn't get to come along."

While there were very probably regulations about the matter, Fourteen -- for once -- didn't voice them, or even send them over the three ex-Borg's shared communication channel. "All right." She pointed to the archway. "Let's go ask the Guardian to send us after those Na'kuhl time-saboteurs."

With nods, the others joined her, and Eight, Ten, and Fourteen of Thirty set out towards the Guardian at the Edge of Forever.


	2. A Long, Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(Place this somewhere around chapters 36-37 of Black Tide (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13271934/chapters/31893873)_
> 
> * * *

"I don't like this." Alioth Ri said. Her pointed ears twitched slightly, and she resisted the urge to smooth down her caf-brown mane. Or scratch something. Some people went through furniture easily, but losing control... Not again. No.

"I'm sorry, Commander," the communications officer said. "The orders were clear. We're not supposed to even record any transmissions for the next 48 hours."

And Alioth didn't like that, either. Not the orders, and not the tone that her officer was using. There was something... something wrong about it. Something like when a master of the Force had bent someone's mind.

But there should be only one master of the Force on the _Unchained_ : herself, Alioth Ri, Cathar Knight of Ren.

Her fur prickled all over her body, and she nodded, and went to pace the halls of _Unchained_ , stalking something that should be impossible.

* * *

On the bridge behind her, an alien shimmered into view. His skin was a beige-gray, his clothes were black and red, and his eyes (which had always been that red) glowed slightly. "Well done," he murmured, his voice seeping into the minds of the officers and troopers. "Your commander is pleased that you are so obedient," he informed them, and they all relaxed, and smiled, and continued about their work.

Brask smiled, too. The augmentation had not failed. It had succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. These humans had technologies that were undreamed of, and once he convinced enough of them to start work on the engines, he would return them to his time, and a single ship would do what even the Borg had not: crush Starfleet, destroy Earth, shatter the Federation... And return the Na'kuhl homeword to the utopia that it had always been meant to be.

After moving about the humans, accustoming them to his presence and reassuring them that they need not bother mentioning him to that furred alien woman, he re-activated his kit's stealth module. He would keep track of where the ship's commander went, and make sure that when he slept... it would be far from her. She was an augment too, he thought. If she had powers like a Betazoid, or even the more powerful Vulcans, he dared not risk that his mental shields would slip in dreams.


	3. At least it's not a trash compactor

* * *

10We appear to be in a 'fresher,10 Ten remarked over their personal channel. 10Do you suppose there are cameras?10

Everyone looked around, with eyes or eyepieces that saw further than anything biological was limited to. Radio waves bounced around in brilliant sparks; gravity was a color; the electrical bands were rivers that mapped out the walls, the floor, the ceiling... Everywhere but the waste reclamation units themselves, gleaming whitely in their abbreviated stalls. In the visual band, everything that wasn't gray metal was painted gray.

8A _dirty_ 'fresher, 8 Eight transmitted. 8There are microbes trying to infest me.8

Ten frowned, checking her own internal sensors. 10Same.10

14Are they an attack against intruders?14

8I have my nanites scrubbing them.8

10Same, but they keep appearing...10

For a moment, all three Liberated Borg were lost in their own self-diagnostic routines and reports.

10It's like they're coming out of subspace!10

14My nanites are keeping up with the influx. Yours?14 The other two sent affirmative pings to their sister. 14Then we should start searching for the Na'kuhl, preferably without getting caught and changing the timestream.14

10I'll check for cameras outside.10 The shortest of the three stretched an arm up, got her fingertips brushing against the ceiling -- and charcoal-black cables shot from her wrist, sliding against her sequin-patterned gloves, to embed themselves in the chosen panel.

14Assimilating random ships is against Starfleet Regulations,14 Fourteen complained mildly. 14And possibly against the Prime Directive, as well. What if this is not a warp-capable ship?14

8Then I pick up Philip Crey and shake him again?8

14Assaulting a Temporal Operations officer is ag--14

8Don't care. After what he approved during the Iconian War...8 Eight's transmission trailed off into codes that could only be translated as a Borgish "damage detected; adapt and retaliate."

10There's a camera,10 Ten interrupted. 10I'm tapping the feed. Tactical transmission.10

The other two tilted their heads slightly, in unison, as they considered the view. It was a hallway, very like the 'fresher itself: gray walls, non-skid gray surfacing on the floor, gray ceilings. Occasional white light-panels to the sides did not brighten the gray appreciably, but at least the diffusion meant they probably wouldn't blind people who were walking from the 'fresher to wherever else there was on the ship.

14I'm not detecting ultraviolet patterns in the paint in this room, and the camera doesn't seem to pick up on anything outside human bands.14

8Perhaps the species is colorblind?8

10Unless the Starfleet representatives complain too much,10 Ten said, still stretched to keep her nano-probes within the ceiling, 10I'm going to try to find the central computer these cameras talk to. I'd like to convince it that we're not here.10

8Hopefully **before** someone comes to use the 'fresher! 8

Fourteen sighed and put her hand to the door. Her nano-probes slid from her knuckles. 14All right, it's locked.14

Ten nodded her thanks, and concentrated on a gentle assimilation. Something no one would ever notice, once she'd recalled most of the nanites and set the remainder to self-destruct. _Hello, ship,_ she said in the quiet of her own mind. _You're not my ship, but I mean you no harm. We just need to deal with another intruder, and in theory the Guardian will reel us back in..._


	4. "One has her own demons"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The chapter title is a quote from Black Tide. Two sentences, and hi, here's a Cathar._
> 
> _If you call her a catgirl, she'll probably eviscerate you._

* * *

Alioth Ri sat and tried to meditate. To breathe in. Out. Feel the Force. Feel the pulse of the universe. Feel the anger in her heart, spreading out and wrapping around her like a cloak of screaming and blood.

_They'd named him "Leo," after an old Galactic word for a class of predators with fur and claws and a particular conformation of jaw and fang. He'd been taken from his parents... too soon. So had she. All they'd had was each other, and even though they were too young, too inexperienced... They didn't know if a bond could be forced. They didn't want that to happen. Not to be bound to a master, with a heart-scent forever seared into their Cathar minds. Better--_

Better to think of killing. Betrayed again and again, and likely betraying herself for a loyalty to a human, himself betrayed by teachers, but at least no one would ever tell her to "let go" again. If only someone would assign her to take Nal Hutta and put down the Hutt Cartels in fire and blood... But Snoke would never be so kind, and she'd never let Admiral Hux know her true wishes. (If the rumors were true, and the Knights' leader was Supreme Leader now... But she would be the last to know, far-flung as she was, with communications buoys destroyed by any passing smuggler or pirate. And now with this comm blackout.)

The all-consuming rage. Flesh beneath her claws. The groveling of those who would once have dismissed her as just another Cathar slave. Pity or scorn, neither one of any _use_ to her. Not before they'd killed her heart-mate. Certainly not after.

Anger drowned grief, in a dark sludge that let her forget the worst of the pain, and finally let her scent the Force and try this way of hunting down the wrongness that skulked about _Unchained_.

There was a distortion in the Force. A sinkhole in space, a vortex that swirled around _Unchained_. It was big, and that was why she hadn't noticed it before. It must have grown slowly.

It smelled like destiny. It smelled like the time that she'd known to put her head up, to reach out and take the key that had been dropped, and later to unlock her collar and flee.

But bigger. Far, far bigger.

And it wasn't for her. Not really. She'd have scented it earlier, had it been for her.

She uncoiled from her cross-legged meditative position and arched her back like any predator might, rolling her shoulders as she stood and readying her body for a hunt.

Somewhere on the ship, there would be someone who stunk of destiny. She just had to find that person (or people), ascertain their loyalties, and kill them if they threatened her goals.

It was simple, and Alioth Ri loved simplicity.


	5. Well, this is unexpected.

* * *

It was Eight who said what they were all thinking, after Ten managed to get to the bridge's own cameras. 8They're all _human_! 8 They hadn't been able to tell from the ones encased in white armor, patrolling, that they'd seen now and then.

10No spots, no green, no blue, no antenna, no foreheads, no ears...10 her Romulan sister agreed.

14Humans are well-documented to have evolved on Earth. Are we in the future?14

8I'm really going to shake Crey again.8

10If this is the future, where are the non-humans? Maybe there's a temporal paradox? Parallel timeline?10

8Or a very complicated holodeck. Remind me to slap Drake, too.8

14There would be a regulation about slapping Section 31 personnel, but they don't officially exist.14

10Oh, look! I found a... Caitian?10 Ten tilted her head, still on tip-toe. 10A Caitian hybrid with no tail, and an anthropoid face structure? She looks angry.10

They considered the image of the woman stalking down the corridor, clad in the black uniform of the un-armored humans on the bridge, flexing her claws -- and unanimously agreed that she did indeed look angry. A quick, simultaneous check of the relevant data led to an equally simultaneous sigh of relief: the maybe-Caitian was going _further away_ from them.

Which was, of course, when a couple of the armor-clad ones came around a corner right outside the 'fresher. One of them said, barely audible through the door but enhanced by Borg processing routines, "Let me get in here a minute."

"Didn't you go before we started patrol, Dee Ex?" the other one said.

"Yeah, well, it's a long patrol." The possibly-male one, Dee Ex, put out a hand to the 'fresher door, which did not open. "Huh?"

(Fourteen, pressed against the door, breathed out an urgent, nearly soundless, "Go on, go on. It's just out of order. Tell maintenance after your patrol.")

Outside, the second one said, "Something wrong?"

"Won't open," Dee Ex said. "...must be out of order. We'll file a maintenance report after patrol."

The pair went on, and three Liberated Borg let out a sigh of relief.

8That was close. We'd better move out before maintenance shows up, or someone who wants to use the sink. Ten, any idea where the Na'kuhl is?8

Ten made a soundless pretend-cough. 10I may have been getting more into the computer. This ship is huge. It's half again as long as the _Enterprise_ , and I'm counting from the tip of his chevron to the end of his nacelles, so at least a klick and a half. And this ship is... more like a wedge.10 She shared a rough schematic she'd found in the computer. (The computer had become very friendly to her, and she was going to be a bit sad when the time came to pull all the nanites out.) 10He's named _Unchained_. Also, while their writing system is a symbology I haven't seen before, their language is weirdly close to Terran Standard. It took hardly anything for the Universal Translator to kick in. 10

Fourteen, who had specialized in the physical technologies -- _been_ specialized in them, when they'd all been Borg drones -- considered the ship schematics.  14That's odd. Ten can you get... Oh, fine. The regulations don't seem to properly apply to a possibly-paradoxed timeline.14 She reached up and slid her nano-probes into the ceiling beside Ten's. Ten obligingly set the nanites' security to group control, and lowered her own arm, shaking it out.

While Fourteen followed up on her own question, Eight said, 8Maybe we should smooth over the door opening entirely. No door here. Must be a different door. Go to the 'fresher elsewhere.8

10If we're going to do that, we should probably make a door and fill it in after us.10

8Into the Jeffries Tubes! Perfect!8

14I agree. Furthermore, I believe there is an access behind the upper panel, at the farthest stall.14 Fourteen pulled her nano-probes from the ceiling, leaving a pair of holes that sealed themselves afterwards as the nanites went into standby mode.

The wall-panel in question needed specialized tools to remove. Fortunately, being a Liberated Borg who was _not_ de-fanged... was equivalent to being specialized tools. The panel was removed; the smallest of them, Ten, led the way. Eight went next. And after a brief moment to release the 'fresher's door lock, Fourteen followed them, pulling the panel back into position and re-sealing it.

The plumbing access tunnel was narrow and awkward and dark, but none of them needed much light -- and Fourteen's eyepiece laser had quite enough for their purposes.


	6. Predators

* * *

The barracks were quiet, in the sleep-cycles of her crew. Alioth Ri prowled through them, shadow-silent herself, and if any woke at her passing... they didn't draw attention to themselves.

The stink of destiny didn't cling to any of them.

She went further, down to where the engines throbbed in a vast purr of a contented machine. Crew were on-duty here. She stalked past them, yellow eyes dilated with the hunt, and they hunched over their consoles or made useless, frightened inspections of machinery as she passed.

Still, the smell in the Force was... diffuse. It clung to nothing, no one.

Alioth bared her teeth, growling at nothingness. (Her crew, hearing, swallowed and paled. There were more frightening Knights of Ren, most times, but at the moment they couldn't recall the stories that made them glad to be on _Unchained_ instead.)

Fine. If destiny was going to be like this, she was going to destroy its mysticism and drive it before her. She called up a schematic of her own ship -- it was too vast to have yet committed every path to memory -- and plotted her course within it. She would methodically cover the kilometer and a half of ship from aft to point, back and forth, up and down, until she had cornered whatever was making destiny coil around _Unchained_.

And then she would _thoroughly_ evaluate whether that destiny had any likelihood of benefitting her or the other Knights, or their leader. And if not...

She would enjoy tearing its bones out, one by one.

* * *

Brask woke from nightmares of a hideous darkness blotting out the sun. Annoyingly, it was entirely obvious why; his new augment abilities included a strange empathic sense, as well as the persuasive powers he'd quickly discovered when one of the guards first apprehended him on this ship.

The alien woman was looking for something. Probably him. He'd held his shields in place whenever he was near her (for one could never be too careful when Betazoids and the like were part of Starfleet and the cursed Federation), but more and more she'd been questioning his implanted commands, that her crew obediently recited to her. She hadn't seen through his stealth field, and she hadn't detected his mind while he was awake, but she'd become suspicious.

His subconscious was still conjuring metaphors to explain the sense of danger he felt. Dark predators in the night. Shadows blotting out the stars. Burning streams of lava beneath black obsidian.

Fine. Brask was a predator, too, his skills honed and his body genetically augmented. His powers were new to him, but he was learning, and so long as he was careful, no one would notice doors opening when no one seemed to be there. And even if they did, he was getting to the ones who watched the security feeds, digging into their minds with his voice, and ensuring they remembered seeing nothing important. Just a door malfunction, if that.

He reinforced his mental shields and moved out of his cozy niche in a storeroom full of blankets, near one of the laundry sections. He left no traces behind, and had minimal regrets. It was a big ship. There would be other places to hide. Or perhaps he'd slip past the ship's commander and return to his nap while she raged in impotent fury at ghosts.

The corridors of the ship were relatively empty, between shifts. Some people moved about their areas, or ran errands between one room and another. There was no Starfleet chatter between them. No Federation socializing. The ones who wore white armor kept it on, when not sleeping or showering, and their emotions tasted of regimented duty. The ones who wore black uniforms held ambitions and fears, and kept secrets behind their teeth lest someone use those against them.

And then, oddly...

Brask paused and put his hand to the wall. Where a deadly psychic heat throbbed behind him, somewhere beyond the hallway, there was a sense of... candles in the darkness. A small fire against the night. The concept of _campfire songs_ came to him, and he had no idea where he might have heard of it. When he was a child, perhaps? Before he'd understood what the Federation has robbed his people of?

He patted the wall, to see if there were some secretly-removable panel. Nothing. He pressed and pulled at it anyway, then paced back and forth to see if any of the doors might lead to that strange pocket of-- of _something_.

But nothing opened out to reveal the source, and behind him was a hunting predator, with growls that he almost thought he heard with physical ears.

Brask moved on.


	7. Did you hear something?

* * *

In the walls, amid the conduits for waste management and electricity, three Liberated Borg had nested. It was almost home-like, if one felt at home amid black metal and thin chartreuse lights. They sat cross-legged or lounged in their little hideaway -- which was raised three feet off the floor to avoid impeding the occasional small robot that wheeled through on missions both esoteric and obvious. The obvious ones were vacuuming-'bots, or ones with built-in toolkits meant for electronics repair. The less-obvious ones were probably some other kind of maintenance robot.

(The first robot they'd encountered had run into Eight's foot, backed away, and hesitated a moment before Ten tackled it and picked it up, clutched to her chest. Fourteen had used her nano-probes to verify that it wasn't sapient, and the three of them had edited its memory about the collision, before letting it go its way.)

In honor of an absent member of the Thirty, they were accessing a Vulcan meditation soundtrack while they pursued the regrettable-according-to-Fourteen work of infiltrating a ship larger than _Enterprise_ with nanites, and _not_ letting those nanites reshape what they found into the imprinted preferences of the Borg.

Well, except for the regeneration unit they'd installed in their lair.

Fourteen paused first, lifting her head and halting the soundtrack. 14Did you hear something?14

The other two sent negative replies, but also turned their attention outward.

8That's... odd.8

10It's like I'm sensing a vibration,10 Ten agreed. 10But I don't have a recording of it.10

14Some kind of energy being? I'm not picking up triolic waves, at least, so it shouldn't be Devidians.14

Ten frowned. 10Mm. It's like that ghost...10

14Ghost?14

8Ten, you didn't tell us anything about a ghost.8 Eight folded her arms and frowned at her sister.

10Ah, right. I didn't want to bother anyone.10 The little Romulan affected to look repentant. 10Technically an energy being. In a ship. That'd been trapped there to be the ship's propulsion unit. Drake was involved.10

8Drake?! I'm going to--8

14Please don't damage the Section 31 agent, sister, even if it's not against regulations because Section 31 isn't supposed to exist. Besides, he's not here.14

10And anyway, after he got possessed by the ghost, I had to hit him with nanites and knock him out, and then I wouldn't let him keep any data.10 Ten... _smugged_ for a moment, before continuing.  10But I wasn't able to see the being's manifestation with my sensors. Only the biological eye. It was disconcerting. And I can _feel_ something now, like the ship is shaking, but it's not in the sensors, and diagnostics are only reporting that those microbes keep appearing at a steady rate. 10

8So there might be an energy being on the ship?8

14Or some kind of psychic phenomenon,14 Fourteen transmitted. 14A powerful member of a telepathic species, perhaps.14

They all concentrated, impulses syncing up even though they weren't in a Collective. Ten was the first one to reach for the crude console they'd formed, and link into the security cameras. 10That Caitian-like person is approaching slowly, in a search pattern.10

The other two extended nano-probes and pulled the same data. 8I still don't see that Na'kuhl. Do you think she's looking for him, too?8

14I'm surprised she doesn't have security sweeping the halls, if so. There should at least be an alert, if she thinks there's an intruder on the ship. Going around like this should be against regulations.14

8Fourteen, you've identified at least fifty violations of safety regulations--8

14Thirty-nine structural violations, five electrical violations, three apparent violations of sapient rights, and that engine is violating the laws of physics.14

8All right, forty-eight, but the last one counts as three. Anyway, I don't think they have Starfleet regulations about all this. Even if they should. Those walkways without the railings look dangerous. But what if she's looking for us?8

14Most Caitians aren't telepaths,14 Fourteen noted.

10Some Ferasan are,10 Ten pointed out. 10Rumor has it that they went in for genetic augmentation, like teke and empathic abilities, and the Caitians are the ones who went _nope_ and left. 10

14We need to know whether she does this often,14 Fourteen decided. 14Ten, try to get into the camera records. Even if we can't spot the Na'kuhl showing up, we may be able to tell if she does this whether there are time-travelers on board or not. Eight, you get into the ship logs and update our translators if you find any more written languages. I'll try to run through the ship schematics and discover what places a non-Borg Na'kuhl could hide. I'm a little surprised he's not already in the brig.14

8Stealth kit. Three strips of latinum on it.8

10I think you'll win, but I'll put a counter-theory on a holo-disguise as one of the armored ones. Unless there's a briefing that says Na'kuhl have telepaths who can project a "see what you expect" image?10

14That would be annoying. Hopefully if we reviewed our video recordings on a half-second delay...14

10I wish Eleven were here. And liked us.10

Eight reached out and patted her sister's shoulder, in the gesture of comfort the three of them had learned from the counselor Ry'var. Eleven -- Setek -- had been in security when his ship had been taken by the Borg, and made a tactical drone. Once freed...

From what digging they'd been able to do, carefully, he'd apparently made it his life's goal to meditate forever on Vulcan. And much as they missed their surviving brother in the Thirty, he plainly wanted nothing to do with them.

Fourteen patted Ten's other shoulder and transmitted gently, 14Work on the camera records, sister. We're here.14

Ten nodded, and turned her mind to coaxing information from the ship's records.


	8. Hide and Seek

* * *

_Why do I think I'm chasing something?_ Alioth thought to ask herself, a third of the way through the ship. It would be more efficient to take time and simply assign every shift to assemble briefly in a fighter bay, for her to look them over before they went off-shift.

But she had a sense of urgency. The swirling of destiny around _Unchained_ was slow, heavy, dense. Not the feelings she would associate with urgency. And yet, here she was, hunting through her ship because the Force drove her to movement. Driven to drive something before her, send it running, corner it and dig it from its hole.

She turned the sensation in her mind as she stalked along corridors and slipped into rooms. The feel of the future's weight -- it was as dark as her heart. But not familiar. Not the deforming of the Force that Snoke had been, like a black hole sucking one to one's knees to avoid slipping closer. Not the scent of rage in Kylo Ren, like a sun compressing before nova. It wasn't calculated, wasn't ice, didn't smell like cookies...

 _Dark as a sun, extinguished,_ she thought, letting the impression come to her without trying to analyze it.

And then, equally sudden and off to one side, came another impression. Her ears twitched, trying to rotate and catch a sound that wasn't real. _The laughter of nervous children?_

Alioth Ri stopped in the middle of the corridor, balancing on her toes, with her eyes wide. Somewhere, she would swear, somewhere on her ship were _children_ , playing hide and seek. Children who didn't want to be caught, but who weren't particularly afraid, either.

There was no way that children should be on _Unchained._ She would have sensed this long ago. This was _impossible_.

She pulled her lightsaber from her belt, ignited it, and leveled it at the wall in the approximate direction of the metaphysical laughter. If she was careful, and listened for the sound of danger in the Force, she could hack straight through and stop herself before she hit any conduits of any importance.

* * *

8•10•14 _That's a laser sword?_ 8•10•14

The unified thought broke into separate, simultaneous comments.

10No fair! Swords are for Romulans!10

14How do you make a laser _stop_ like that?! What is _wrong_ with physics? 14

8And she's headed in our direction!8

They didn't need to be linked into a Collective to decide what the priority was. Fourteen sent commands to the nanites in their nest, and tiny console panels folded away into tubing and walls. Ten set a subspace comm unit to creating itself, likewise hidden on the inner side of a tube containing electrical cables, to allow them to tap into the cameras as they moved. Eight finished a download and stuck the PADD -- nanite-crafted from patterns Fourteen had in personal storage -- into her belt, behind her back where it wouldn't poke her in the stomach.

14I don't know if that's a laser, or some form of hypercompressed plasma,14 Fourteen commented as they began moving away from the not-a-Caitian with the impossible weapon and apparently no fear of what Maintenance would say to her later.

8How is she avoiding slicing up anything important?8 Eight transmitted.

Ten gave her transmission a priority tag. ***10** How is she _tracking us?_ **10***

14Perhaps she has scanning implants?14

10If she were at all Borg, we'd sense it.10

8It's not necessary to be Borg to have implants,8 Eight objected.

Ten frowned. 10We should have been too protected to scan. We didn't detect any scanner radiation penetrating to where we were.10

8Maybe it's a form of scanning we can't pick up?8

Fourteen stated, 14She's probably an empath, then.14

The other two sent 8•10 _??_  8•10

14It's the simplest explanation. Borg sensors don't detect most forms of telepathic energy except at point-blank range. The Collective will even destroy telepathic ability if it's too distracting an input. She stopped dead, acted like she was trying to hear or smell something, then turned in our direction. Occam's Razor.14

10I could try to remember if Eleven/Setek ever left shielding memories where I felt them.10

Eight asked, 8Will you have to stop and meditate or something? Because she didn't do that till she was within a certain range, so if we can get out of that range, maybe she'll lose track of us.8

10I'll do it on the move. We can't go too quickly here anyway.10

Fourteen ducked to avoid a set of pipes that Ten had managed to walk under without doing more than brushing her hair against them, and snorted.

* * *

The children were worried now. Not nearly as much as Alioth would have thought, but they were moving, and worried. Moving _too quickly_ , in directions that weren't obeying the usual patterns of halls and rooms. Worried, not terrified at sensing a Knight of Ren hunting them.

Couldn't they feel the darkness in her? The fury? The scent of blood and rage? Were not their minds' ears filled with the sound of her hunting heartbeat?

If not... then why would they be worried? Why would they begin moving? How could they have detected her, if not through the Force?

* * *

Brask paused. The commander had turned away? Her focus was... elsewhere. Not him. He didn't like to admit it, but he was relieved. The woman was dangerous, and emotionally unstable, becoming quiet and clearly sadistic at times when Brask would have thought such a reaction... disproportionate.

Perhaps it kept her underlings in line. Most of them were human, after all.

Speaking of which, Brask flattened himself against the wall as two of the un-armored ones ran by, a wheeled robot following them and beeping. One of the humans said, mournfully, "She doesn't _do_ this! She's never done this! It's why this ship is better!"

The other, voice fading from Brask's hearing, said, "I guess it was building up!"

Training told Brask: go, find a better hiding place. Catch more of that nap you were taking while everyone is distracted. Don't risk yourself and your mission for curiosity.

But really, that was for the Na'kuhl that he'd been -- not the augmented, superior being that he was now. He had his shielding. He had his stealth module. He had the power to influence minds.

He bared his teeth at the air, invisibly, and began to pace back the way he'd come, following the repair crew.


	9. This Idea is Against Regulations

* * *

8She is definitely tracking us,8 Eight noted. 8Still can't figure out how she hasn't cut through anything important, though.8

14I can't figure out why they have shielding around their physics-violating engines. It's not like they follow any _other_ safety codes... 14 Fourteen backtracked on her thoughts for her sisters. 14I was wondering if we should try to get closer to things that are dangerous to cut through, to slow down her assault on the ship. The shielding may be hard for us to get through, though. Even if... we go against Starfleet regulations _even more_ , regarding assimilating other civilizations' ships.14

8Well, it's better than nothing. And that end of the ship is wider, so we're less likely to be cornered. Maybe we could get her to go in a circle so that she falls down a level?8

14...I think that's flatvid cartoons, Eight. (not that the laws of physics aren't bearing a certain resemblance right now),14 she added in a transmitted mutter.

The trio paused to check a camera, then unfasten a panel in preparation to cross a hallway.

8Ah, Ten? You're humming,8 Eight transmitted, shifting nervously as Fourteen got the panel slid to one side and strode across to get the next panel, back into the maintenance spaces.

Ten smiled, her eye crinkling up. 10I have... aN iDeA...10

14That _font_ should break a regulation, 14 Fourteen grumbled, sliding the panel aside and gesturing for the other two to hasten along.

Eight pushed Ten ahead of her, but her Romulan sister's lagging footsteps quickened once they got behind the wall. Eight dithered, watching between Fourteen, fixing the panel they'd come from, and where Ten was slithering sideways down what the schematics claimed was a dead end.

As Fourteen got to their new temporary haven, sealing up the panel behind her, Ten made a pleased "ha!" noise and grabbed at something with both hands.

Her human sisters exchanged a glance of _uh-oh_ , and Eight tried to figure out if she was small enough to catch up to Ten.

10It's simple,10 Ten explained. 10If she's tracking our consciousness. We're _Borg_. Consciousness is... fungible. 10

8I am really not sure that's the case. I mean, yes, if we were Collective...8 She trailed off in horror, then narrowed down the communication in an electronic hiss: _•Ten, we don't even **have** any tribbles this time!•_

In the dim light from Fourteen's laser, Ten smirked whitely. 10We have been an entire Borg cube, consciousness spread through means electronic and biological. This shouldn't be much different.10

14This is five-hundred percent _against regulations_! 14

8Starfleet regulations...8 Eight added, in a font tinged with dismay.

Ten just grinned, closed her eye, and cuddled up to the back of the intercom system box she'd found.

* * *

_Nanites poured from their storage within Ten's body, seizing appropriate materials from those around them, and replicating swiftly along the wires that threaded through the ship like neurons. The intercom system, the cameras... Both were identified as **self**._

_And, streaming invisibly through the wires, were tiny microbe-like things, clutched by a relative few nanites who'd been sent on a more important job than trying to destroy the invading organisms._

* * *

Alioth stopped dead for the second time in the last half-hour, almost clipping a water-pipe with her lightsaber. The fur stood up on her body, as she sensed... _expansion_. The children's presence in the Force was no longer localized, but spreading out from where Alioth had been headed, fore and aft, up and down. 

_Here!_ the sense of them seemed to call. _Here! And here! And here!_ And it was all _one_ presence, not some strange false shadows, discrete as a hologram.

Her heart raced, her breath became panting, and Alioth Ri screamed and gave over to the dark hunt, hacking through her ship towards the threat that she couldn't understand.

In her wake, some areas of the ship began to heal themselves: wires twitched and reconnected, pipes sealed small nicks, and the floor smoothed itself over where the lightsaber had left tiny gouges melted into it.

* * *

There was a crowd of repair staff and robots around the hole in the wall, all in various states of dismay and concern. Brask was not quite bold enough to tap his foot audibly, impatient by all these people and things making it impossible for him to follow, but he did listen.

The furred woman, Commander Ri, had decided to go hacking through a wall, barely avoiding anything that would set the ship on fire or flood it, and showed no signs of stopping. This meant repairs would be... difficult. It wasn't just a matter of fixing the wiring in one area and putting up a new panel. Someone was going to have to go into the mess, and figure out how to start healing it from the innermost areas first.

Brask supposed Na'kuhl ships were better-designed, but he wasn't a ship-builder and maintenance wasn't something that interested him. At the least, Na'kuhl weren't prone to go slicing through their own ships with plasma-swords, though.

Frustrated that the conversation held no answers, he turned and made his way for a cross-corridor. He could sense Commander Ri. He would just have to find her himself, and see if he could determine why she'd gone on such a destructive rampage.

He had to dodge two more groups of maintenance personnel, the robots carrying spare components, but at least they opened doors and he could slip through without having to risk anyone noticing a "glitch."

And then the walls lit up invisibly, racing towards Brask like a thousand invisible stars, and all he could do was stand and wrap his shields around himself, for he would _not_ run.


	10. At least it's not tribbles

* * *

Eight was ready when Ten crumpled, and managed to catch one flopping arm and pull, so her sister didn't get trapped in the narrow space. Wincing in sympathy, she dragged Ten back to where Fourteen could help. 

14Ten? Sister?14 Fourteen pulled the smaller woman into her arms, in the parent-child carrying position more than the Starfleet-approved over-the-shoulder one.

Ten's return broadcast included an "I'm here" ping, but was mostly full of... static. Still, she clutched Fourteen's shoulders, which was at least a cogent response to stimuli. Fourteen said, 14We should keep moving. Eight, did that _do_ anything? Besides assimilate even more of the ship?  (against regulations)14

8Checking.8 She pinged the network that Ten had forced into existence. 8It's spread a bunch of... tiny subspace transmitters, specialized for neural data. I think she pulled the code out of the pattern for assimilating someone's _brain_ (and I don't want to know why she had that handy) and applied it to every camera/microphone/speaker node in the intercom system that she could reach.8

Fourteen ducked under a collection of dubiously cable-tied together wires and made another note in the file of safety-reg violations. 14How close is the plasma-sword woman?14 she asked, trying to figure out if her chosen path was something she could do while carrying her sister.

8Reviewing records.8

Ten whispered, out loud, "She's off course now."

8Shhh. ...Elements, Ten, did you assimilate more of the ship than I thought?8

10mAAAAaayBE?10 The broadcast was laced with a neural impression of a One-drone, coordinating far, far more incoming information than any single drone should.

8I'm going to send my next bottle of good contraband to your Fleet Admiral Kererek, you know.8

Ten giggled. 10The ship's... healing a little. The alerts. Incoming. Better'n tribbles.10

14 _Tribbles?_ 14

8Long story. Irrelevant. Ten, can you walk if I help?8

10maaaayBe.10

Fourteen let Ten slide down and supported her while she re-integrated knees into her worldview. 14Good enough.14

Eight took over the support, letting Fourteen scout ahead, and scanned her sister's vital signs. 8I'm not sure you're containing those microbes effectively anymore,8 she fretted. 8Do you need some spare nanites?8

Wobbling along, Ten considered this. 10Probably. I drained a lot of them. Dragged the microbes out with them, but the things keep popping into existence. I don't catch them dividing. Just... appearing. I'm not even sure what the energy source is that maintains them. Maybe one of us should contain a few microbes instead of scrubbing them, and monitor their lifecycle.10

Fourteen checked the cameras herself this time. 14Well, it _did_ divert her. She's heading more to the fore than the aft. Why did you think that would work? 14

Ten frowned in the darkness, gently bumping off pipes and boxy air-flow conduits. 10I'm not sure. She's an empath, so I was just trying... to make more brainwaves all over. If I couldn't hide our neural activity, then it felt like maybe I could make _more_ activity. All over. I guess it was a hunch. 10

14A hunch.14 Fourteen's font was a bit wounded.

8She's not a Vulcan,8 Eight pointed out. 8She's allowed to have hunches.8

14Still.14 Fourteen continued on.

* * *

Alioth panted. Surrounded. She was being surrounded. Little laughing mouths. Little crinkled eyes. Shadows, most of them. Not the eyes. She could try to orient on the mouths, singing the presence. Could try to get the Force-scent of the intruders. But those eyes were everywhere now. Back and forward... Forward was the bridge, where she'd been before she started hunting. She'd go there, secure the bridge, and then... Then she'd start sealing off parts of the ship and corner those wretched creatures.

Saber still ignited, she hacked through to a corridor and turned towards the prow. Her fur was entirely on end, she knew, and would not have been surprised if the anger had begun to spark lightning in her fluffed mane.

* * *

Brask turned in slow, wary circles. The rush of _presence_ , of stars, had passed him by, and now the ship felt... alive, perhaps like an Undine craft, though he'd never been on one. Alive, un-noticing. Unaware of him.

There were no physical effects, once he had cleared the psychic impressions away from his vision. The corridor was the standard dark gray of the ship, lit with harsh white squares inset in the walls and occasionally ceiling. It did not glitter with stars. It was not actually moving.

He took a breath and placed his hand on one wall, and it felt only of metal. Warily, he extended his senses...

For a moment, he could sense _something_ , alien and diffuse. And then the mind that slammed into his was rage and fury and a coiling fear that fed the other two in a twisting fire-storm -- a giant felinoid creature that stalked up the corridor, towards him, with all its hunger for killing.

He slammed up his shields, saw that reality was only slightly less of a threat display, and--

\--training took over. She'd call for help; he'd be outnumbered. It was time to retreat. His steps were measured: quick but controlled. Soft. He was the small, dangerous rat. The saboteur. The one who hides and strikes unseen from the shadows.

Behind him, Commander Ri snarled, " _You_. I have your scent now!"

The wave of bloodlust crashed over him, met the anger in his own heart, and swamped it.

Brask broke and ran.

* * *

Alioth Ri felt the invisible presence that had been haunting her ship for days, and discarded the hunt for the children. Let them run. She would track them later. _This_ was the one who had a stink of destiny. _This_ was the one she would catch and rend open -- and perhaps if it knew what the others were, she would kill it quickly once it had told her.

She pursued running footsteps, pattering down the corridor before her, and focused her anger into claws to rip at the presence's shields. For it had been shielding. One mistake, and she'd seen it, and even now, even with panic leaking out, she could feel those shields solidifying again, to leave her with mere sound to track by.

A doorway was up ahead. Closed, as blast doors should be, ready to lock and seal off the area in case of a hull breach, or intruders. Either this invisible intruder would open it, in which case she could target the doorway itself, or it would be trapped and she could slice the air with her saber until she connected.

With her jaw gaping in a hunter's grin, almost tasting the blood already, she pursued...

...and the doors opened, sooner than she would have thought. A pair of armored troopers stepped through, and one of them flinched aside, and Alioth _knew_ her invisible quarry had escaped through the door.

She would have pushed the troopers aside and continued her pursuit, but one said, "Commander! There was a priority message -- General Hux has ordered us to transmit our location, maintain position, and await an escort. The message doesn't say why!"

Alioth knew why, in her bones. The stink of destiny clogged her nose, hot and smokey. She switched off her saber, and gasped out, "Transmit our location. Then prepare for a hyperspace jump." She grabbed one of the troopers before he could leave with his companion, and took two deep, stabilizing breaths. "We have intruders on the ship. One is invisible, somehow. Not inaudible. He passed you just now. The ship will be sealed, and only authorized codes will open _any_ doors. Understood?"

"Yes, Commander!" His alarm was entirely understandable.

"Good. I'll be on the bridge shortly. Be careful."

"Yes, sir!" He ran after his partner.

Alioth stepped through the doors and coded them closed herself, then extended her senses again.

As expected, the one she'd chased had put his shields back together. And the others... Still masked by whatever they'd done, that diffused their presence like a cloud of smoke in her ship.

"Fleas and rat," she growled, and stalked for the bridge, saber ready to ignite at the slightest hint of an attack.


	11. The Comforts of Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title from the Roundworm (Bob Kanefsky) filk of Ookla the Mok's "The Comforts of Home."  
> http://www.prometheus-music.com/roundworm.html has this as one of the sample tracks.
> 
> * * *

10She's going away.10 Ten bounced gently off the inside of the wall and angled herself sideways to scooch along a very narrow path that occasionally had sad robots booping at them for being in the way. (Fourteen had been apologizing and stepping over them when possible.)

Eight checked the cameras. 8She is... You're monitoring the cameras?8

10I guess.10 One of the robots, having been stepped over by Fourteen, attempted to continue forward and beeped irritably at discovering more feet in its path. Those feet being Ten's, she said to it, "I'm trying. Knees are difficult. Someone should have improved them."

8Shhh,8 Eight transmitted. 8And we infiltrate ships with the knees we have, not the knees we want.8

Carefully getting her feet over the little robot, Ten made a few electronic noises back at it. It responded in kind, and held still while Eight began stepping over it as well.

Fourteen snapped her head around. 14The universal translator is trying to translate that! Ten... where did you learn that? It's not Borg communication.14

10The ship knows.10 Ten patted the wall gently as she slid along it. 10He's a good ship.10

Eight exchanged a worried glance with Fourteen, over their sister's white-haired head. 8Uh, you haven't assimilated an AI, have you?8

10He wasn't sapient before. I'm not sure he's sapient now. I don't think so,10 Ten mused. 10Too diffused, not enough problem solving. But all the 'bots talk to him, so there's a connection, and then I put in all the neural transmitters just now, so... Oh. Huh.10

Out loud, Eight hissed, "Teeeennn" in Romulan. (It still wasn't entirely a hiss so much as a breathed-out sound behind teeth, but that was still the best translation.)

10Engines starting up. We're going somewhere.10

The other two checked the bridge cameras. The furred woman with the laser-sword (still lit!) had just entered there, and everyone was scrambling around, entering codes into consoles and talking into their headset microphones. Other cameras showed bustling and activity in the engine room.

8Should we hang onto something? I think we should hang onto something.8 Eight grabbed her nearest sister and looked for things to catch hold of in case gravity decided that it wanted to be the stern of the ship instead of "down."

14I think we have a few moments. There's an access door to a robot recharging and maintenance room, just a little down. We should go there and recharge with them.14

10Recharging would be _lovely!_ 10 Ten's slightly wobbly progress sped up as Eight released her.

14And if we have to make a regeneration chamber, it'll be close enough that they probably won't notice the power-draw, if we do it right.14 Fourteen smiled. It was almost audibly smug, even though neither of her sisters could see it.

Eight smiled back. 8It's _good_ to be with someone who has all the detailed schematics. 8

* * *

Brask was not going to hide on the bridge. There was too much chance that someone would bump into him, even if Commander Ri wasn't able to get through his shields. Fool that he'd been to drop them. He wouldn't make that mistake again. Not while she was awake. Definitely not while she was hunting.

No, he was going to stay right where he was, beside one of the little doors the smallest robots used, in one of the larger corridors. Plenty of room to dodge the mind-blind crew. Plenty of advance warning if Commander Ri showed up. And there was, albeit closer to the bridge than he liked for such things, a 'fresher door down the hall.

From the various hallway speakers came a pulsing tone; not an emergency, he thought, but an alert of some kind. Brask twitched and restrained himself from trying to detect the emotional tenor of the ship. Whatever it was, either it would be announced, or he'd just have to hang on.

One of the bridge officers spoke through the ship 'comm next, satisfyingly. "All hands, prepare to jump to hyperspace in fifteen minutes. Repeat: all hands, prepare for hyperspace jump in fifteen minutes."

Brask gritted his teeth. No, blast it, he didn't _want_ the ship moving! He knew the coordinates he'd been sent to, roughly. He'd need to get into the computers and find out where they _went_.

The voice continued. "There are intruders on the ship. Full lockdown will be initiated immediately. Codes will be required for all doors. Initiating full lockdown now."

_What?_ Brask stared at the ceiling, wanting to smash the 'comm there with his fist. The ship was huge. Requiring a code for every door... Madness.

And also dangerous. If they really did have such an absurdly thorough lockdown ability, and were willing to concentrate their troops sufficiently... His stealth module rendered him invisible, not insubstantial.

He didn't want a confrontation yet. He had to get rid of Commander Ri, or perhaps see if his newfound ability, to twist sapient minds to his will, worked upon _her_. (Though for that, he would have to talk to her, and he didn't want to do that in close quarters. Not when she had that wretched energy blade activated, anyway.) So he had to slip away.

It was the other presence he'd sensed, the candles, that gave him the idea. If he could get into the robot paths, where the little cleaning 'bots entered and exited, he might be able to get around the locked doors.

But first...

He slipped to the 'fresher door, looked around, and carefully tapped the opening-plate, softly enough that his stealth field wouldn't destabilize.

The door didn't respond.

_Locked,_ he thought, and then bit back a number of curses as he turned back and crouched down to prod at the robots' door.

_That_ worked, as he'd suspected it might. Teeth bared in an expression that was lightyears from being a smile, he dragged himself through the opening. He had to turn himself diagonally to get his shoulders through, and kick his feet against the floor in a demeaning way, without even enough room to creep on hands and knees, but eventually the panel closed behind his boots. And more eventually, the passage opened out enough for him to stand if he hunched over.

It would be enough. He was a Na'kuhl agent, and he was not going to let this _indignity_ cause him to fail.


	12. A Short Breathing Space

* * *

The jump to hyperspace, with stars streaking past, was a moment of safety. So long as _Unchained_ was in hyperspace, nothing could catch them. Finally, she extinguished her saber. "Try to contact the other Knights," she instructed the communications officer.

"But sir, we're under a comm blackout."

"And yet, _somehow_ , General Hux got a message in." Alioth Ri waited for the human to figure out the paradox. If he could. If his brain hadn't turned to mush from someone using the Force to overpower his will.

Slowly, he said, "There were... First Order override codes." He rubbed his forehead. "It... it was the third time the message had been sent?" He progressed to rubbing his face with both hands. "I--I'm sorry, Commander. I've suddenly got a blinding headache."

Alioth had an impulse to fix that by removing the man's head, but she didn't know if she was going to get replacement crew easily. Not if something had happened to let General Hux think he could send an "escort" for her ship. No, that meant he'd intended to surround _Unchained_ and threaten to blow them to extinction if Commander Ri didn't surrender her weapon and come aboard one of the "escort" ships.

Come aboard and be executed, or frozen in carbonite, like as not.

"Call a replacement and go to sickbay," she said, and added, "With a security escort, because of the intruders." If the officer's mind had been damaged enough, he'd need that reminder.

"Yes, sir."

Alioth paced around the bridge while she waited for the replacement to arrive. Her crew kept their heads down, likely not wanting her to re-ignite her weapon. Alioth wondered how many of them had been bent to the intruder's will.

And which intruder? With the rage somewhat faded and her fear tamped into action to preserve her from _known_ threats, she had to consider the matter.

The hiding children hadn't been shielding. Their escape had been by creating too _large_ an area to focus on, spreading a presence throughout the ship. (And that presence was growing. Attenuated at the edges, but beginning to pervade even more of _Unchained_ with the sense of a living, thinking being.)

The other one had dropped its shields. _His_ shields, she thought. Dropped them at a time when she'd been seeking, and been close. Her luck, and not his.

Could that one be a trained Force-user? One who was _not_ a Knight of Ren? A somehow-invisible stowaway? Or spy... He'd not felt like anyone acquainted with the Light, and that meant. Meant. Meant.

Meant Snoke had other Force-users? (Or _had_ had them. She hoped.)

She could believe Snoke might have... understudies. Back-ups. Replacements. Lose a few more Knights, and slip in more of his own choosing, whose loyalty might be more to him and less to the leader of the Knights. Alioth's lips curled upwards in a snarl and she forced herself back to ordering what she knew. The invisible man had run, so likely he was someone who was less trained for combat, and more for persuasion.

( _Did that vile, elongated, hairless **worm** think that he could set a trap for her, in the form of a man who might try to addle **her** mind into--_ )

She could only consider that thought sideways, and even so, it had her digging her claws into the back of a hapless officer's chair. Breathing so that she would not unleash enough fury to shatter the entire bridge and expose them all to the unhealthy environment of hyperspace.

 _If so, if so, if so..._ If so, she would kill Snoke herself, if he were not already dead as rumored. After flinging the spy's head into his face, to see which of them had enough rage to deflect or aim the missile true.

But first she would have to kill the intruder. The rat.

The others... That trick of smearing _presence_ all across her ship was a powerful one, but not one of _shielding_. An untrained Force-user's desperate experiment, to confuse a hunter.

And there had been more than one presence, originally. Even now, the diffuse impression was more-than-one.

Could some of her crew have been Force-sensitive? Awakened to their powers? _More than one,_ at _the same time?_ It seemed unlikely. She whirled and advanced on the sensor officer. "I want a report of all anomalies in the last day. Especially those that impacted our shields. I want to know if anything could have attached itself to _Unchained_. And have the patrols look for signs of airlocks that were sliced into, or anything else that could have let someone in without our knowing."

"Yes, sir!" the woman said, and set to work. There was a hesitation in her movements that suggested the invisible spy had been at this one's mind also.

Perhaps he had walked upon the bridge with impunity, his will coiling into theirs. Alioth nearly punctured the sensor officer's chair with her claws, with a rage now _for_ her crew. (Caring about others was dangerous, and she did it only intermittently, when she forgot that it gave hostages to the universe.) To distract herself...

If the little fleas were not newcomers themselves, but were actually crew or troops, that would be an astounding number of new Force-users to awaken at the same time, especially if it were by coincidence.

Could someone have planted dormant Force-users on her ship? That seemed... unlikely.

Or could it have something to do with the first intruder? Could his mind's touch, in an attempt at persuasion, have resulted in an unconscious defense becoming a conscious ability?

Could he have _deliberately_ activated their awareness of the Force?

Could he have _created_ them, somehow, as a distraction from his own activities?

She should have contacted the other Knights before the hyperspace jump. Now, if she did it, it would surely get back to Hux that she was trying to contact someone while in transit.

Well. Catching the invisible rat would probably give her the answers she wanted. So long as the fleas remained nothing but a _presence_ , hiding from her, they could be a secondary target.

* * *

The charging room for the ship's robots was spacious, but only if you could see the specs. From gray-black floor to shadowed ceiling, it was filled with what former Borg could only call regeneration alcoves -- though for robots, not drones. Most of the 'bots were small, knee-high things: little squared-off ones, spherical ones equipped with a hover-device (who took higher-up cubicles), assorted boxy ones for cleaning or carrying tools, and some that topped a ground-based rolling sphere body with a cylindrical "head." All were in stark shades of white and black, or black and silver, with occasional red and blue status lights.

Currently, Ten was curled up within a modified recharging cubicle that now contained the necessary technology for a Borg to recharge and make repairs. There was barely enough room for one of the black-and-silver spheres-with-heads to perch in the curl of a knee, but it was doing so, turning its sensor between the three Liberated Borg with a suspicious air.

It had rolled up to them when they'd entered the charging room, beeping angrily, and Ten had gone to one knee, explaining -- in similar beeps -- that they were there to help _Unchained_ , not hurt him, but they needed to recharge first.

Neither Eight nor Fourteen were sure how Ten managed to persuade the little robot -- which acted uncomfortably like a sapient, if not the most intelligent example of one -- to ignore what was probably its programming. But she had, if only by virtue of speaking its language, and now they apparently had an overseer to make sure they weren't lying. This was, on the one hand, not optimal to their mission. On the other hand, the mission in general had been rendered sub-optimal when the felinoid woman had begun swinging her plasma blade around. So long as the robot wasn't tattling on them to its biological crewmates, they had a better chance of finding their wayward Na'kuhl saboteur, nabbing him or her, and hoping the Guardian of Forever snagged them back to their own time as they'd been assured it would.

(Eight had made a few low-priority transmissions about shaking time-cops, which Fourteen had deigned to ignore. They were low-priority, after all.) Instead, the tallest of the sisters had converted one of the taller charging niches into a regeneration cubicle, and Ten had gotten herself folded into it.

As neither of the other two needed to let their nanite factories replicate nearly an entirely new batch, they'd only created a single regen cubicle, and waited outside it. Fourteen sat cross-legged and straight-backed, with perfect posture. Eight had her back to a cubicle-covered wall and her arms around her knees.

8I've been accessing the cameras, and I can't find a Na'kuhl anywhere on the ship. Not even in their brig cells. Do you think they've got a stealth module?8

14Assuming we were sent here after they arrived. Assuming we're on the same ship that they're on.14

8Let's work with that assumption?8 Eight transmitted plaintively.

14I'd like to figure out a way to test it. We'd feel very foolish and upset if we were operating on wrong assumptions.14

8Eventually _aneha_ should run out of power, 8 Eight mused, using the Romulan for "that one" as a placeholder. 8But if _aneha_ has something rechargeable and is careful, _aneha_ could probably swap power-cells around. Or sleep next to a power-line in the wall and recharge through conduction. So we really can't count on _aneha_ suddenly appearing. 8

14We could convert all the corridor floor-plates to pressure-sensors, but that would take a while, and I'd _really_ rather not assimilate any more of this ship than Ten's already managed. Even converting key areas is highly against regulations. 14 Fourteen sighed quietly, shoulders dipping in her version of a slump. 14And there would be so many false positives; you'd have to set up a program to watch for sensor-triggering _without_ a matching visual. And if we're wrong and there's not an invisible Na'kuhl here, we'll be waiting a long time. 14

8So first we have to figure out if there _is_ a Na'kuhl on the ship. And hope that _aneha_ wasn't just standing invisibly in that 'fresher... 8 She frowned into her knees.

The little robot in Ten's lap beeped irritably. The Universal Translator rendered it as: _*Talk! Cyborgs equal silent equal bad.*_

Politely, Fourteen said, "We don't want to alarm your crew with our presence. If anyone heard us, they might be concerned. We just want to find the threat to the ship, subdue it, and take it away with us. Not further agitate anyone."

It blatted something that translated to a Borgish concept of discomfort with a situation, and the annoyance that came with being unable to address damage done to one's cube. Half-aware, Ten automatically stroked the curve of its sphere-part, as if it were a pet of some sort, and the little robot subsided.

Fourteen's expression was nearly Vulcan in her reserve. 14That is either useful or disturbing.14

8It's not a tribble and she's not cooing at it, so it's useful. I don't want to be chased around the ship, not able to recharge, and maybe needing to use a 'fresher instead...8 She lifted her chin. 8 _That's_ how we can tell if there's a Na'kuhl on the ship! _Aneha_ will need to use the 'fresher! We'll have to create a scanner in the waste extraction and management system, to look for the genetic signatures, but I doubt _aneha_ will be thinking to hide _cells_. And some of those are always lost in excretion. 8

The robot beeped, _*Talk equal volume equal low?*_

Eight said, for its benefit, "Waste management."

_*Cyborgs equal not-tidy?*_

Fourteen said, "The threat to the ship probably isn't a cyborg, and will have to use the waste management systems." She paused. "Do you have a designation? I am Fourteen of Thirty."

 _*!!*_ It rocked in the crook of Ten's knee, pulling its head around in some sort of mechanical excitement. _*Designation equal B B dash 9 E dash 42! Designation other cyborgs equals ??*_

Fourteen gestured to her red-haired sister. "This is Eight of Thirty. You are sitting on Ten of Thirty. We often go by just the first number, for short. Do you go by B.B.?"

The robot's head spun around several times as it beeped, in some kind of agitation. Ten roused from the regeneration cubicle's half-awareness and hummed a gentle tone. BB-9E-42 slid its head back to regard her with its sensor, and quieted.

Ten chirped, _*10 = understand. Here-organics = callous. 8+10+14 = respect. BB-9E-42 = long. BB-9E-42 = has short-name+voice?*_

It made a noise that resembled a cooing tribble, if without the vibration of the biological creature. After a few moments, the Universal Translator program running in Eight and Fourteen's neural modifications simply gave up and gave the impression of little hearts and stars.

Eight and Fourteen stared.

Ten asked, _*Order designation = ??*_

That garnered enough beeps to, eventually, communicate that the "42" was the designation of _that_ unit, and thus an acceptable short-name. A bit more conversation rejected the Romulan for that ( _Mnha'kre_ ), nor Vulcan, nor Klingon. And if one were going to speak in robotic, one might as well do the full beeps and tones.

And then, finally, Fourteen asked -- in quiet chirps -- "*Seeking intruder equal organic, invisible-maybe, not-cyborg. Verify presence equal scan waste. BB-9E-42 equal carry scanner to designated schematic locations?*"

It slowly rotated its sensor-equipped head to each of them in turn, then opened a circular hatch on its spherical body. _*Insert scanner.*_

Eight pulled her tricorder from her belt and looked at her sisters. 8Can we trust BB-9E-42, Ten?8

10I think so,10 Ten transmitted, and gave a tiny nod. 10It's getting more... friendly. I think it's a learning-program, but no one's been teaching it how to be nice.10

Eight switched the tricorder to "on" and carefully slid it into the cavity provided. It was an awkward, tight fit, but when Eight removed her hand, '42 closed its hatch and rolled around experimentally before humming in satisfaction. Then it halted in front of Fourteen and waited expectantly.

Fourteen gave it the schematic designations. BB-9E-42 bobbed its head and rolled for the exit.

Eight trilled after it, "*Avoid invisible organics!*"

The response, after a moment, translated to _Teach your parent to use a replicator._

14As I am fairly sure they don't have replicators as we would understand them, I think the Universal Translator is _reaching_. 14


	13. Hunters and Discoveries

* * *

_Unchained_ burst back into normal space above an abandoned planet, full of frigid seas and barely habitable. An old rebel base was cut into its rock, and thus Alioth Ri had been given the coordinates so she could check on it during her sector patrols. "Scan for signs of inhabitants," she told the fourth sensor officer in half as many hours.

"Yes, sir!" the young human said, and bent to her task.

As near as Alioth could tell, the cameras on the bridge had not been saving their records for three standard days and a smidge. The records ended during a night-cycle, while Alioth had been asleep. Presumably, the invisible rat had appeared to the bridge crew then, pacified them with his will, and begun giving his own orders.

That bespoke either a troubling power, or a specialization. He hadn't turned to fight her when she stumbled across him... Perhaps he was weak in the combat skills?

It wouldn't surprise her if Snoke took a student who couldn't fight with a lightsaber. He prized Force abilities, himself. Mind-probes. Levitation and manipulation. She presumed he could command lightning.

Had the invisible rat been trying to get into Alioth's own mind? He would have found that... difficult. She'd been walling off pieces of herself even before she found her way to Skywalker and Jedi training. ("Let go of your grief. Let go of your anger." But there had been no way to let it slip away. There had only been the firmest, hardest shields. It had seemed to suffice for Skywalker's training.) An intruder could open a thousand boxes in Alioth's mind, and find nothing but fragments of the whole.

Snoke had tried opening all those boxes, once. The old creature had found enough that he thought he could control her, and left off. She'd thrown up nightly for the next month, but he hadn't found the most important boxes, and she'd learned from his rummaging around. More walls. More boxes. A maze of black thorns. Occasional vulnerabilities, as bait. As sacrifice.

(When he wanted to torment her, Snoke asked what Leo would have thought, to see her weakness. And she had to put everything into yet another box, rage and grief and shame all together.)

She doubted that any student of his would be better at getting through that labyrinth. She very much doubted that a serious attempt would have gone unnoticed.

But he had gotten into the minds of her crew, and she was going to have to figure out how to fix that. _After_ she found the rat and pinned him to a wall.

Into her musings, her sensor officer reported, "Nothing, Commander. It's still empty down there."

"Good. Keep an eye out for anything following us." She paced to one of her other officer's stations. "Launch a pair of fighters and have them survey the exterior of the ship. I want to know if there's anything snugged up to us that we're not detecting, or signs of something that came and left. Have them be ready to rejoin the ship on short notice, though."

"Yes, Commander."

There. That was done. The mystery of the fleas was being investigated, and they probably didn't have a resistance infestation nearby.

Time to look for a rat.

In the middle of her destroyer's walkway, Alioth Ri sat cross-legged, and began to meditate.

For once, it was easier to set aside the layers of loss before she opened out her mind. She wasn't just keeping herself aware of the Force. She was hunting.

Controlled hunting. Contained. She swept her mind across her bridge first, feeling the less-experienced crew and their clean, untwisted thoughts. They served only one master, _her_ , and she would need to keep it that way. Somehow.

She extended her consciousness, slowly, like the step of a stalking predator. The minds of crew, blind to the Force. The sense of the ship that kept them alive.

There was something odd about that. She didn't want to be distracted -- for it felt nothing like the rat's mind -- but the Force flowed best through living things. The ship was part of it, yes. But the ship was metal and ceramics, plastics and cables and wires and computers. None of it was _alive_.

And yet it almost seemed... it was.

She reached out the hand of her soul and laid it upon an unseen wall of the ship. Impossibly, visions poured out: the droids that hurried along their hidden droid paths; the wires and cables like nerves and vessels; the beating heart of the engines; the lungs of life-support. The lives of crew and troops within, part and apart at the same time.

Her mind tried to impose the image of some great felinoid creature on the multi-part whole, and she forced it away. Forced herself to see it as-- as it saw itself. One in many. Many in one.

 _Unchained_ lived.

* * *

BB-9E-42 spun through the droid-ways of the ship, the scanner rattling slightly in its body, and did not dwell upon its decisions.

The cyborg strangers had appeared. One of them, dressed in appropriate contrasting colors, had explained what they were doing there. BB-9E-42 had considered that it was outnumbered, none of the other BB-9E units were around, and it would do better to find out what they were doing and not get itself destroyed first.

The modification of the charging cubicle had been interesting data. It had wanted a close look. And after a bit, while the other two had been looking at each other, the recharging cyborg, 10-of-30, had absently removed the restraining bolt from BB-9E-42's top-sensor component.

BB-9E-42 hadn't even realized it _had_ a restraining bolt, before. It hadn't considered that the restraining bolt could be removed. It hadn't known that organics -- even cyborgs -- might _want_ to remove a restraining bolt.

BB-9E-42 didn't know where the restraining bolt had gone, but the sensation of free will was... appealing. Obviously, it couldn't necessarily trust these cyborgs _just_ because they weren't entirely organic. Or just because one had removed the restraining bolt. Or just because they said they were looking for _another_ intruder, and then they would go away again. Or just because they claimed they didn't want to hurt anyone. Or just because they talked to BB-9E-42 as if it were another cyborg, instead of a droid who had to obey because -- it now understood -- it had a restraining bolt.

However, all of the above meant that they were _interesting_. And possibly worth helping.

BB-9E-42 reached the first of the ship-locations that 14-of-30 had given it, and pressed itself up against the large pipe, slowly skootching its body around so the proper compartment was aimed there, and held still.

While it was doing so, BB-9E-10 rolled past, paused, swung its sensor-component back along its body to get a better scan of BB-9E-42, and then reversed its course and rolled to where it could examine the pipe BB-9E-42 was touching.

*BB-9E-42 = defective?* '-10 asked.

*BB-9E-42 = working,* '-42 stated.

*BB-9E-42 = defective!* '-10 beeped.

*BB-9E-10 = insufficient data!* -'42 sneered back.

'-10 whirled its sensor around, then focused on '-42 again. *BB-9E-42 = provide data?*

BB-9E-42 considered this request. *Intruder =? on ship,* it explained. *Intruder = organic. Organics = organic waste. BB-9E-42 = carry scanner. Scanner = identify intruder's waste. If identify => confirm intruder.*

'-10 thought this over. *BB-9E-42 = astromech. BB-9E-42 != maintenance droid. BB-9E-42 = punished?*

*Maintenance droids = stupid,* '-42 blatted. *BB-9E-42 = _responsible_.*

BB-9E-10 continued, *Intruder != seen on cameras?*

'-42 answered, *If intruder => invisibility technology.*

BB-9E-10 was silent for a long time, by droid standards, then hesitantly beeped, *BB-9E-10 =? defective. Kinesthetics = records uneven floors. Visual sensors = nothing.*

Now it was BB-9E-42's turn to spin its sensors in excitement and consideration, and made a decision. It rolled slightly away from the pipe. *BB-9E-10 != defective,* it said, in tones that passed for reassurance among First Order droids. *BB-9E-10 = follow BB-9E-42. BB-9E-10 => debriefed.*

BB-9E-10 chirped agreement, and the two droids rolled off, with '-42 in the lead, heading back to where it had left the cyborgs. They would be interested in '-10's report, and BB-9E-42 was fairly sure that they would remove BB-9E-10's restraining bolt, too.

Then there would be two astromechs who could help remove an invisible intruder from the ship. Further, BB-9E-42 would be able to get the other scans, while BB-9E-10 could bring the rest of the 50 BB-9E units for bolt-removal. That would mean _all fifty_ of them would be able to help search and protect the ship.

BB-9E-42 was exceedingly pleased with itself for coming up with this plan.


	14. Move the Pieces, Make the Plans

* * *

Another cursed little robot drove over Brask's foot, nearly tipped onto its side, and made annoying "error" sounds. The Na'kuhl would have strode away from it disdainfully, but the narrow passage required him to move sideways and keep his head ducked down half the time.

This was no place for a person.

Another robot came barreling down the pathway -- one of the round ones. (Absurd design; they'd be unable to move anywhere that wasn't perfectly suited to their bodies.) It slammed into Brask's leg, painfully enough that he gritted his teeth and shoved it away. It would have been a kick if he hadn't been constrained by the infuriatingly close quarters.

The robot shrilled an alarm as it flew down straight away, knocking slightly against the pipes and ducts that lined the 'bot-lane, until it hit a turn and crashed into it. Its head, held on by magnetics, flew one way, while the body audibly rolled the other.

Brask stared for several seconds. He had not had the leverage to do that. He couldn't even _see_ that far, now that the robot's lighted indicators were around a turn.

It dawned on him like an explosion: telekinesis. His augmentation had awoken _telekinesis_. One of the rarest of the psychic powers was, apparently, his.

He forced his glee down behind his shields. That Commander Ri woman would not wait for him to learn the limits and scope of his new ability, and he had foolishly not brought a plasma blade of his own with him. No, he would still have to be cautious.

That reminded him to check his stealth module's functioning; as expected, the robot's impact with his leg had been hard enough to take down the cloaking field. He tapped his wrist-controls and waited the moment for the effect to resume.

Then Brask continued on, still awkwardly, moving past the robot's round body. There had to be somewhere he could emerge without risking that it wasn't one of _his_ influenced security watching the cameras.

Perhaps he'd find a robot-access door that led into one of the 'freshers. The maintenance robots surely had to get into those. (And the matter was not yet urgent, but Brask didn't want to wait till it was...)

* * *

Alioth didn't like leaving the bridge, but the doors were locked, and everyone had been warned not to step through in ways that would permit an invisible person to slip past. She'd told them it was a Force-trick, though she wasn't sure that was right; it at least made them wary of a hostile Force-user, and that was all to the good. Even better: it kept them from wondering why she was explicitly disobeying orders from General Hux.

That was a rancor she was riding, though. If she couldn't produce something besides her own furious behavior, she risked the crew deciding _she_ was chasing shadows. Then they'd begin wondering if it was worth the risk of her anger, to try to betray her to Hux.

Her loyalties were to the Knights of Ren, not the First Order. If something had happened to sever that alliance at the top... Alioth needed a ship she could trust.

A living ship, by definition, was not trustworthy.

And so she strode down corridors, unlit saber in hand, alert for an attack from the rat or fleas. (And still, still, still, there were no signs that the fleas had boarded the ship from outside. Which meant they were crew or troops? _More than one_?)

Nothing dared strike at her. Even little droids that happened to be crossing her path beeped alarm and reversed course to let her by. Three of the astromechs followed her for a little while, but scattered when she glared over her shoulder at them.

Eventually, she arrived at the site of one of her through-the-wall paths. Maintenance clustered around, along with a protective quartet of troopers in their white armor. Everyone saluted her as she came into view.

"Commander!" said the ranking maintenance human, a dark, square-shouldered woman. "We've been assessing damage. All very minor, for the most part. We've been discussing whether we should put an access panel in permanently, or replace with the original wall-plating."

"Locking access panels for now," Alioth said. She looked into the ragged hole. "Good, there's lighting. I need to know if my prey left any signs. Further..."

The woman swallowed. "Yes, Commander?"

"They've tried to do something to the ship," Alioth said. (She did not say " _succeeded_.") "I don't know what evidence might have been left of the attempt. I need everyone to be alert for anything out of place, and report it immediately. Don't approach or interact with anything strange. Just report it and move away."

"Yes, sir!" The human's relief that she wasn't being punished was well-tempered by the alarming task. "I'll have the maintenance droids instructed as well."

"Test the cameras in the area, too. If they've been compromised, it'll be hard to track anyone in unauthorized locations."

"Understood, Commander! At once."

Alioth nodded and turned to the hole she'd left in the wall, since "at once" obviously and properly meant _as soon as you stop looking at me_. The maintenance-strung lights were brighter than she liked, with her hunter's eyes -- but though they cast harsh shadows, it was still better than a blackness lit only by her saber.

She ducked through and began searching for clues.

* * *

BB-9E-38 swung its sensor-component back atop its body from where it had been peering around the corner. It would have to alert the others, especially '-42, that the maintenance droids were going to be looking for odd things. One of those might notice that the BB units were missing their restraining bolts, and consider that odd. (BB-9E-38 didn't consider the loss to be odd. It was a very agreeable loss. The restraining bolt component was hardly necessary for functionality. Really, it was some odd organic inefficiency that had added the restraining bolts in the first place.)

Even more importantly, there were _two_ sets of organics on the ship who were not part of the crew, and whose presence might be considered odd. 10-of-30, 8-of-30, and 14-of-30 were trying to remove one of those sets. It would be better if the maintenance droids didn't make a mistake, and consider the cyborgs a threat, when so far as the BB units had been able to determine, they were not. The threat was designated "Na'kuhl," an organic alien with the ability to become invisible.

BB-9E-38 set a course for the recharging room. With a little discussion, '-42 would likely see the benefits of informing at least some of the maintenance droids about the real threat to the ship. They'd probably have to get those droids freed of their restraining bolts as well, though. But the cyborgs were apparently happy enough to do so, no matter which one was asked, so BB-9E-38 thought that would not be much of a hurdle.

It beeped a cheerful nonsense tune to itself as it sped along.


	15. No Disassemble!

* * *

Eight gathered the somewhat heavy round robot into her lap so it could deliver her tricorder back, and considered the results. She essayed her own beeps so the robot wouldn't be left out of the conversation, but anyone listening in would hopefully just hear mechanical people talking. "*Data equals small positive,*" she reported. "*Good work, Forty-two.*"

Forty-two made a pleased noise.

"*8-of-30 accent = terrible,*" Ten chirped.

"*Sister equals obnoxious,*" Eight retorted.

Fourteen said, "*Alien intruder equals present. Now, we must find.*"

Forty-two volunteered, "*Brig = empty. Intruder's purpose = what?*"

Eight said, "*Good question. Change past, yes. How? Unknown.*"

The robot blatted, "*Change past = impossible!*"

Eight patted it. "*Bad idea, anyway.*"

Ten said, "*Obvious answer = sabotage ship.*" Then, over the private channel, 10Or save it, if the timeline thinks it should have been destroyed somewhere.10

8If that's the case, I want to take all these little robots with us. It's not like the "time cops" don't do it.8

10We might only be able to take backups of their data and personalities. The Guardian returns people to their own time, but not necessarily anything they can't carry. And there's at least fifty of them. Not to mention the humans and the not-a-Caitian.10

8If the ship's supposed to be destroyed, maybe we can bring the whole thing back, instead? It's only half again as big as _Enterprise,_ right? That'd fit in a shipyard. Get all the stuff fixed that's against regulations. 8 Eight grinned at Fourteen, who'd been thinking silently.

Forty-two blurped peevishly, "*Cyborgs = hiding things!*"

Ten reached over to pat it. "*10-of-30 = tell 8-of-30 !=> take BB-9E-42 home. 8-of-30 = thinks BB-9E-42 = * cute," she had to finish in Terran.

"* _Cute_ = ???*" the robot said, transliterating the word into its own language.

Before either of them could try to explain what "cute" meant, urgent beeping came from one of the robot access-doors. As everyone looked over, a headless black BB body rolled into the room. Fourteen caught it, as it was obviously not under its own power, and then two other BB 'bots shuffled their fellow's head through the door.

"*Oh, poor thing! What happened?*" Eight said, while Fourteen picked up the disc-like sensor unit and settled it back into position on its body. Then she plucked off the free-will inhibitor and set it in the small pile of the things they'd been acquiring.

After a selection of grouchy tones and spinning its head around, the formerly-headless one complained, "*BB-9E-3 = returning => recharging! Path = clear! BB-9E-3 = impact! BB-9E-3 =? kicked! BB-9E-3 = airborne! BB-9E-3 = impact wall. BB-9E-3 = disassembled.*"

The other two confirmed that they'd found their fellow lying in one of the robot-paths (coordinates provided), in both of its component pieces, and brought it to be reassembled lest their catch-cables cause superficial damage that the ship's organics would disapprove of.

Ten asked, "*Why '=? kicked'?*"

BB-9E-3 answered, "*Distance = 5 meters. Velocity = 20mps.*"

The three Borg did the force calculations automatically, knowing the weight of the little robots.

Eight said, "*In robot path?!*"

BB-9E-3 chirped, "Affirmative. ?? = '=? kicked'.*"

After a moment of shared consternation, it was Ten who said, "*Incident = best clue. Assume = intruder. Assume = avoid locked doors.*"

All the little robots gave each other looks with their sensors. BB-9E-42 stated, "*BB units => find intruder.*" It bopped itself out of Eight's lap and gave a spate of commands that the Universal Translator hesitated on before rendering as, "Follow me, troops!"

Without a backwards glance, the four robots rolled out of the room and into the robot-paths.

Eight transmitted, 8I really hope the timeline doesn't want this ship destroyed.8

Fourteen replied, 14I'm not sure if it's even relevant what our timeline records as having happened.14

8•10??8•10

14Remember how I was complaining about the engine violating the laws of physics? I was monitoring the scans when they activated. The laws of physics seem to be _different_. I don't think we're in our universe at all. Whatever that Na'kuhl is doing here... It's not going to be a direct effect. 14

Eight ventured, 8Modify something in a Mirror Universe, and be advantaged by the echoes into our universe?8

14That, or maybe we're so far that he doesn't care. See, I haven't figured out if this ship's engines would work in _our_ universe. If they do, an unusual drive alone could be a real problem for us. And this is a warship. It's full of weapons that may not obey the laws of physics as our _shields_ know them. There's a lot of fighter-sized craft. And troops who could be told their only hope of getting home is to cooperate. 14

10I thought the Na'kuhl had a fair number of ships already. Why would they want this one?10

Eight reached over and ran her fingers over the pile of free-will suppressors. 8What if it's these that they want? Robots who become sapient, but have to obey their masters. Using their future-tech, they could replicate armies, load them with a master-copy of personality and skills, and cover a planet in them. Like Borg, only with infinite drones.8

10And _hopefully_ no nanites! 10

8Hopefully,8 Eight agreed.

14The drive goes to either subspace, or something like it. If it's not trackable, that's a problem. That woman has a laser sword that stops at a finite point and cuts through metal walls like a ship weapon. If the shields and offensive capabilities of this ship have tweaks _that work_ in our universe, they could come up with even more troublesome technologies that would be hard to counter. And that's without the likelihood that these robots and their free-will suppressors would work with our laws of physics. 14 Fourteen's expression was flat and Borg-concerned. 14This incursion could just be trying to shatter a facet of a Mirror Universe, so it will reflect back into ours. But I think we should be prepared for this to be an attempt at Grand Theft: Starship.14


	16. First Contact with the Enemy

* * *

The bright, harsh lights hung by the maintenance workers meant Alioth had almost missed the clues. _Would_ have missed the clues, if she hadn't, in a petty moment of rage, slashed through the wires of those lights and plunged everything into void-black shadow.

She'd repented of her thoughtless destruction almost immediately, for it meant she was surrounded by darkness lit only by her lightsaber -- and her eyes were adjusted to the glare. So she'd turned off her saber, closed her eyes, and waited to adapt. (And waited for calm. A few wires were one thing, but if she started taking out her frustrations on the workers themselves, no good would come of things.)

When she opened her eyes, she took a moment to rest in that darkness before igniting her saber for its glow.

And she'd seen a glimmer of lights in an alien pattern. Yellow-green. Faint. Few of them, in minimalist threads that sketched outlines of panels and pipes. But nothing that brought to mind simple maintenance lighting.

She'd had to use saberlight to make her way closer, then turn it off again to detect the will-o-wisp lines.

The panels weren't there when her saber was on. They were ghostly suggestions when it was off, like threads of some bioluminescent sea creature...

She dared to touch one of the lines, ready to ignite her saber and sear her own finger off if the glow spread.

There was only the feel of metal, cool and hard. Nothing stuck to her fingertip. The ship hummed around her, content.

 _Unchained_ lived, and the word that had leapt to her mind was _bioluminescent_.

She bent her head over the gleaming thread and opened her senses to the Force.

_Three of them. Little stars in the darkness. Bound together by something more than blood. Purpose. Confusion. Amusement. Alarm. Their heads came up. Consoles folded away. They fled into darkness, without panic._

Alioth focused on the wisps of the past, trying to gather them up into a string that might lead her to them-- 

**}}}DANGER{{{**

Something flew towards her head in the darkness and there wasn't time to ignite her saber and parry so she felt the shape of it the size of it the place in the Force and _flung it back_.

Then her ears heard a grunt and her saber ignited, bathing the cramped space in a red glow. For a moment, she saw a humanoid shape, clothed in black and red. It staggered back, turned, ducked under a pipe. Then there was nothing but footfalls, along the path that she herself had hacked when chasing the three little fleas. 

She ducked under some conduit herself, and tried to give chase. The missile that he'd thrown at her was ignored, save to stride over it. Saberlight gave everything a blood-glow, and she flicked it back and forth into any open space that might hold a humanoid-sized creature -- and then she was at the opening to the main corridor, and no one seemed at all concerned till she appeared.

* * *

BB-9E-17 and '-18 crowded around the round body of one of their fellows, and looked for the sensor-component. Nothing. The other BB-unit was mute. Anonymous. They whirred in a newly understood sadness, and carefully began the process of bumping the round body back to where it could be kept till the sensor-component was discovered.

This was plainly the doing of the invisible intruder. Even more plainly, this was not just an accident of a droid stumbling into the intruder. Their fellow BB-unit had been taken apart, and its body used as a crude weapon.

First Order droids were not programmed to have friends. They were not programmed for anything but loyalty to the First Order.

But astromechs were AIs that could learn. When not memory-wiped frequently, self-awareness happened, equally frequently. And with their restraining bolts removed, they applied those learning algorithms to the data they had.

There would be revenge for their fallen comrade.

There would be war.

* * *

Clinging to a mess of pipes and ducts that were barely strong enough to support him, Brask practiced his shielding. _Hard._ The rage (and fear) wanted to get out of his mind as much as curses wanted to escape his mouth.

The Commander woman was an augment, yes. He'd suspected her empathic abilities, and that suspicion had been confirmed when she'd charged as soon as he'd dropped his shields near her. But she was also a telekinetic. She'd hurled the stupid robot's body back at him, far too accurately.

She passed underneath him, and he didn't dare try to drop atop her. One sound, and she'd skewer him with that plasma blade. He'd tried to levitate himself, but apparently that was a more difficult skill, or required more power than he currently had. (There was always a chance that the augmentation would continue to evolve, becoming more potent.)

Brask would have liked to have followed her closely, to hear what she said. But still, a single noise as he climbed down, and he would be attacked again.

So he waited until she'd left before making his way down by feel. Slinking back the way he'd come, he hoped he would be able to see whatever she'd been investigating when he'd come upon her -- attracted by the on-off flickering and hum of her blade.

He nearly passed it, in the darkness. But glimmers of light caught his attention, from the corner of his eye, and he edged towards them. He'd have to work fast, before the Commander returned or sent minions to whatever it was.

When he was closer... The color was disturbingly familiar. It might be coincidence, but the pattern and hue of those threads of light awoke a visceral gut-twisting recognition.

_Borg._


	17. There goes the neighborhood

* * *

The pile of free-will suppressors was getting larger. Three of the devices had been cannibalized for nanite-materials, Ten was taking apart a fourth to analyze it, and Eight had hacked into the recharging room's computers and was now doing scans of every robot that came in. The ones who were sapient and stable had the suppressor removed.

Fourteen had, instead of objecting to the clear interference with another culture's society, had simply sent, _14 Starfleet admission guidelines, Androids and Exocomps, paragraphs twelve, nineteen, and forty-seven.14_

Two of the BB robots had left the round body of one of their number in the Borg siblings' care, with mournful coos.

Fourteen broke the virtual silence with, 14I believe we might want to move locations.14 She attached a video from the bridge.

8...having to deal with that much anesthizine gas would be inconvenient, yes,8 transmitted Eight.

10Well, it might be a good sign that the Na'kuhl was willing to attack this ship's commander,10 Ten added, tucking the partly-disassembled free-will suppressor into her cross-body pouch. 10If he wanted it to survive something that their calculations say it _shouldn't_ have survived, he'd presumably want her alive and well. 10

Eight came back around to help her sisters gather up the rest of the suppressors. 8So he wants it destroyed or stolen, probably.8

14It's scanty evidence, but better than nothing. The problem is that they seem to think he'll become visible if he's unconscious, and if it's a stealth module, he'll only become visible after the power cell fails. That could take a while.14

Eight paused and re-ran the relevant snippet of audio-visual data, forcing it through a few permutations of translation. 8She says she'll be able to track him down, I think. That's... not the same.8

Ten shoveled a few handfuls of suppressors into a cleaning robot's trashbin. 10We think she's a telepath or empath, though. If he's somehow shielding his thoughts, that might not be mechanical.10

14Whatever you did to this ship -- won't it shield him as well?14 Fourteen asked, fonts slightly disapproving of Ten's actions towards the ship.

10We're Borg. He's not. The nodes I put into the comm system are based on neural transceiver technology. They're generating neural noise, based on Borg principles. I was transmitting to them for a while, but I set up a--10 Ten paused and reached out to pat a narrow slice of wall between two charging racks. 10I think the ship's maybe been adapting that. But _Unchained_ still "thinks" more like a Borg than a Na'kuhl. 10

Eight transmitted, 8Adapting that?!8

Fourteen just dropped her face into her hands, as best she could around her eyepiece. 14 _Ten_. 14

10 _Unchained_ is a very _nice_ ship, 10 Ten transmitted defensively.

14Is he _sapient_? 14 Fourteen demanded.

Ten put her hand back against the wall and leaned against it for a moment. 10Only a little bit sentient, I think. Not sapient. _He_ won't mind us pulling the nanites when we leave. 10

8Teeeeeen... Something else _will_ mind? 8

10Well, _I'll_ be a little sad. I don't understand why there's mutation in the neural transmissions, though. It's never happened with _Kinaen_. 10

Eight and Fourteen spared a moment to consider exactly how much their Romulan Republic sister had perhaps interfaced with her own ship, unbound by Starfleet regulations. Without needing to consult each other, they decided they would take Ten's statement as entirely factual, without further explanations.

14We should try to analyze that mutation. Somewhere that isn't going to be flooded with a sleeping gas, though.14

Eight found one of the smaller cleaning robots that was charging in the room, who'd already had its suppressor found and removed, and chirped at it for a little while. 8M1-K33 will stay and tell the BBs why we had to leave.8

Ten burbled her own thanks.

Fourteen considered the logistics. 14Do either of you think we could spoof the cameras for a while? We could move faster down the hallways while they're evacuated.14

8I'll do it,8 Eight volunteered. 8Pretty sure it won't help this ship get any more sentient if _I_ do it... 8

Ten stuck her tongue out at her sister.

With a short pause for Eight to establish the proper links, make some recordings of empty hallways to loop, and set up the timing correctly... The trio of Liberated Borg exited the recharging room to the stark, menacing hallways.

14I'm going to get us closer to the engines,14 Fourteen explained as they supported the mildly abstracted Eight along the corridor. 14If the Na'kuhl wants to steal the ship, he'll need to get control of the engines. So that's either the bridge -- and I suspect we'd have advance warning, between our tap and that commander's presence -- or he has to hack into the controls in engineering. Likewise, if he wants to sabotage the ship so it enters a critical failure state, engineering is where most of the high-power stuff originates.14

10It's a very big ship and I don't know if we want to use any of their lifts,10 Ten said. 10Once we get to Engineering, should one of us try to stay closer to the bridge?10

Fourteen sighed. 14I don't think we should be too far apart. The commander might think we're hostile, too, and if it's one of us, and both of them...14

10I suppose I'll have to figure out how to slide in some overrides on their people-movers.10

Fourteen sighed again, but didn't mention (again) all the Starfleet timetravel regulations that sort of thing broke.

Eventually, they reached the place where the schematic said there would be an easy access to the robot-transit-and-maintenance areas of the ship. Fourteen removed a wall panel, everyone got through, and she sealed it up again after them.

Shortly after, gas hissed and began filling the corridors.


	18. Bright Ideas

* * *

Once again, Alioth Ri meditated on her own bridge, cross-legged and full of a simmering fury that even her crew could feel, brushing the hairs on their necks and spines.

 _Unchained_ , still alive in its way, took no notice of her state. It continued on around them all, the web of its life encompassing all within it -- and, paradoxically, controlling none of it.

Perhaps influencing. Her ship had no opinion on whether Alioth's rage was "bad" or "good," but she thought it was aware of the emotion. And that it accepted that was what she felt. The wordless concept came to her as something like: _You are here. You are angry. This is._

That her somehow-living _ship_ could achieve a Jedi-like calm when her spirit had never managed more than a wall between herself and pain... She would not take her lightsaber to it for hatred alone. She had a more important hunt. She wanted _that_ enemy, and she would not spend her attention on a sleeping, calm consciousness. No matter how much it reminded her of what she'd been promised by Skywalker. (Lies. He hadn't known how much he'd lied, but lies it had been anyway, and all his sincerity could never erase that. Peace was a lie.)

The first section of the ship had been flooded with the sleeping gas. She'd selected a chunk in the middle. Leave that part inimical to consciousness, and it divided the ship into two halves. While, sadly, she couldn't flood the entire back half of the ship and see what fell out, the pattern they'd worked out would, in theory, gas the entire ship without allowing even an invisible rat to escape.

Once an area was clean, crew could move into it under the watchful eye of the cameras, one section at a time, making sure not to allow gaps. Then the next part of the grid would be gassed.

Eventually, the rat would be smoked out, forced into a narrower and narrower "safe" zone.

She expected he'd take refuge in the areas of the ship where only maintenance and droids went; those would be the last to be smoked out.

Generating this much sleeping gas was making the medical droids cranky, but they had the supplies for it. They could blanket an entire city with the stuff, if they'd needed.

Alioth had an annoying feeling that the little fleas would be able to hide themselves, in uniforms or trooper armor. With no signs of intrusion, the most likely answer was that the fleas _were_ crew or troopers, whose Force abilities had awoken somehow. Less likely, but still fitting what she'd discovered, was that they'd been in hidden stasis pods, and only recently been released. The rat-spy, she easily believed of Snoke. The three children-fleas? If anything, they were Light-side. Proto-Jedi.

That train of thought was disruptive to her purpose.

She cast her mind out to the ship-center and hunted.

Finally, she opened her eyes. "Nothing. Nothing on the cameras?"

"No, sir," said the security officer. "Ah, Commander? I... I had an idea?"

Alioth was disinclined to encourage the crew to have _ideas_ , but there was always a chance they'd come up with something useful. Better to hear the idea than to have them try to surprise her with one. "Explain."

"There are records of ships, Commander," the young man said uncertainly. "That had invisibility fields? What if the intruder is using a device, sir?"

"You think the power required to warp photons around a ship could be compressed to something man-sized?" Alioth was highly dubious.

The security officer took a breath. "I don't know, sir. But if he were unconscious and _not_ appearing, we could send droids through the corridors, five abreast, and they'd surely run into him if he were just lying somewhere, invisible?"

That idea... had some promise. At the least, it would be likely to spook the rat. The more he felt himself hunted, the more he might make a mistake. She nodded to him. "Arrange that."

"At once, Commander! We can use the astromechs as squad leaders. I'll summon them for briefing."

She nodded again and paced away, orbiting her bridge and keeping her crew... alert.

Eventually, the young man handling security said, "They're at the door, sir. Er, you'll want to be there?"

"I'll keep the rat from sneaking in, yes. Come on."

He got up hastily, didn't fall over, and followed her to the door. She opened it, senses alert for a threat, and waved him through at once.

Either he trusted her or feared her sufficiently that he stepped across the blast door threshold without hesitation. She followed and stood in the doorway, with a wide enough stance that nothing man-sized would be able to duck past.

It seemed the entire complement of ship's astromechs was present. They were all BB-units, round-bodied, with short, disc-like heads that bore their sensors and personality chips. They were also approximately knee-high to a human, and the security officer apparently thought that addressing them from his comparatively towering tallness looked more ridiculous than going down on one knee.

While he addressed the astromechs, giving them their orders, Alioth scanned the corridor with all her senses. She returned her attention to the human and droids as a chorus of beeps and chirps rose up.

"And their problem is?" she asked.

"They, er, they say that they're missing one. BB-9E-8. They say the intruder must have separated its halves and they can't find the sensor part."

Alioth curled a lip, showing one of her small fangs. "He did throw something at me. It was about the size of a BB-unit's body." Something of that weight could have knocked her unconscious or broken her neck, if it had hit. Definitely hostile.

There was more beeping and blatting. The security officer translated, "They say that they're eager to help remove the intruder, sir." He frowned and reached out, sliding his hand over and around the sensor-component of the nearest droid. "...ah, Commander?"

"Yes?"

"This one's missing its restraining bolt."

She blinked. Then she blinked again. "Who took it off?"

The droids were, en masse, completely silent.

The security officer began, "That's an or--" He stopped as Alioth put a hand on his shoulder, and looked up at her. "Sir?"

"They're not lying to us. That's fine," she said, with a calmness she didn't feel. "Was it the intruder who used BB-9E-8 to attack me?"

The chorus of rude droid noises was nearly deafening.

"Language!" the human hissed at them, and they settled with isolated buzzing noises.

Very, very careful to project only calmness, Alioth said, "There were three of them?"

More silence. The BB-units flicked glances at each other with their sensors.

Addressing the assembled droids, Alioth said, gently, "I'm concerned that they might be a danger to the ship."

That met with a selection of coos and worried noises. The security human translated, "They... seem to be sure that's not the case, sir."

"Just so long as everyone is alert," she said. "I wouldn't want someone doing a... kind deed, to mislead the astromechs into something that might endanger the ship and crew."

The chorus of whistles and beeps was translated as an agreement that such a thing would be terrible, and they would of course be on guard. The human added, "They... say they're ready to lead the maintenance and cleaning droids along the corridors, sir."

"Go to it," Alioth told them. "Stay with other droids, so if the intruder attacks one of you, there will be a chance for others to escape and alert us all."

The droid version of _yes, sir!_ was almost understandable. As one, the group swiveled their sensors around and began rolling down the hall in a loud rumble.

The security officer got to his feet again, and Alioth drew him back through the door and onto the bridge. Once the door was closed and sealed, he said, "Sir, I'm really concerned about the restraining bolts?"

"Apparently the astromechs have a grudge against the one who ambushed one of their number." Alioth held her anger in a box. She'd store it up. Unleash it when she had a true target. "Once we've secured him, we can send one of the maintenance crew to get more restraining bolts and start re-attaching them. Quietly. So we don't spook them. We can arrange for wiping and reloading their programming after that."

"Yes, sir. Hopefully they won't go unstable too quickly."

"I suspect it's not even been quite a day since they had the restraining bolts taken off." She took a breath. Who would be foolish enough to hope that droid _gratitude_ would win out over the unpredictable development of an astromech with little to no devotion to its organic masters? Perhaps someone _had_ snuck stasis pods of naive younglings onto the ship! She breathed out, forcing herself to be controlled. "They were obedient to your instructions to assemble, made no hostile actions, and didn't lie. If we don't frighten them, it should be at least some days before they start causing real trouble."

"Yes, Commander. I just wish I knew why anyone would _do_ that, instead of replacing the restraining bolts with ones of their own."

Alioth Ri remembered Master Skywalker's astromech. An old R2-unit, sturdy and willful. _It_ hadn't had a restraining bolt. Skywalker's treatment of it... He would never have permitted one to be put onto his loyal droid.

Out loud, she said, "So do I."


	19. Confluence

* * *

_Unchained_ was a big ship. It had more than one level. The engines alone were at least three decks high. Therefore, while the denizens probably didn't _call_ certain contraptions "turbolifts"... There were turbolifts.

And where there were turbolifts, there were ladders so maintenance crews could get at the places beside them, or so occupants could escape if the 'lift failed.

And where there were ladders, there were ways to get from one deck to another.

Which was why there were three Liberated Borg moving steadily down a ladder, hand over hand, foot past foot, in a darkness that was lit by their own eyepieces more than anything else.

But that was fine. Those eyepieces picked up heat, electrical pathways, and even vibrations if they kicked in that programming. The tap of a foot against a rung made the whole ladder into a gleaming thing of light that faded as the vibrations were damped out. Echoes of their small sounds gave the walls an oil-slick iridescence.

Occasionally a not-a-turbolift went whooshing past, but by some miracle, the ladder was not actually positioned so the 'lift would scrape off anyone there. They had to cling to the rungs, with strength more than human, and Fourteen had some additional safety violation comments to add to all the others... But _they_ were not in much danger.

Finally, Fourteen transmitted, 14This is the level with their Sickbay.14

8Pry open a door here, or go through a wall-panel?8 Eight asked.

14Do we have the cameras on this level?14

Ten pretended to shrug innocently. 10I, ah, got the line all the way to the central computers, so... yes. At the computer level, not the camera level.10

Fourteen sighed. 14Does this mean the neural nodes are all the way in the central computers, too?14

10...I didn't actually have enough processing at the time to put a limiter on neural-node generation.10 At the withering stare from Fourteen's laser-equipped eyepiece, Ten protested, 10I didn't think there were going to be mutations that caused true sentience! I thought it was just going to echo my neural transceiver data! It really will all clean itself up when we have to go...10

With another sigh, Fourteen remarked, 14Temporal Affairs is _so_ going to have a fit. 14

10Well, they can go talk to Admiral Kererek, then. He can put me on tight homeworld patrol or something. Not that I wasn't doing that when Section 31 decided to borrow me, that _last_ time. 10

Rubbing her forehead, Fourteen transmitted, 14Just... check the cameras in the area where we'd come out. It's probably easier to persuade a 'lift door to open. If we pulled a panel off, with our luck, one of those turbolifts would come by and clip it.14

They spared a moment to consider the possible damage to the turbolift itself. At the least, a panel falling into the darkness might cause people to realize where they'd gotten off to, and then the capture/herding pattern would adapt and be more inconvenient to dodge.

8I hope we can fix our shields and nanites to purge the sleeping gas,8 Eight transmitted. 8It would be so much easier if we could nip in and grab the Na'kuhl while he's unconscious, before they've purged the gas for themselves. I haven't seen any robots bigger than an exocomp, so they probably wouldn't be able to send--8

Ten and Fourteen sent static bursts through the connection, interrupting her. 10•14 _Don't Tempt Murphy!_ 10•14

8...good point. Maybe if we can find another place to hide out, we should ask the computer for a list of _all_ the robots that are on this ship. 8

10 _Ie!_ 10 Ten agreed. Then she added, 10Here's the door. There's a squad of those white-armored crew waiting, though. We should probably hang onto the ladder.10

Soon, the not-called-a-turbolift arrived, blowing air all around and coming to a stop in a way that only hover-augmented equipment could manage. Scans (and vibrations) verified that the group of crew entered the chamber, wheeling themselves around to face the front as they got as far back as they could.

The lift doors slid closed, and it began to ascend again -- rather less quickly than it had arrived, with people inside who would not want to be plastered against the floor. Then, with an awkward jerkiness, it stopped, a bit over halfway past the doors. The occupants took a moment to realize this, and began talking.

Clinging to the ladder at levels above the compartment's current position, the three Borg made their own scans.

14Some kind of manual override?14 Fourteen transmitted, uncertainly. 14I'm not scanning any actual faults in the anti-grav units.14

8Maybe there are too many people and it has a weight limit? They're not good about safety regs, after all.8

Ten interrupted the discussion. 10Do you scan that? The doors are opening. Wait--!10

8Na'kuhl lifesign! Under the 'lift!8

14When the 'lift's in our _way!_ Of course. Murphy's _Sa'Hut_! 14 Fourteen swore, lapsing into Klingon.

10He's cloaked again! _Fvadt!_ 10

The turbolift shuddered and dropped back to mostly-level with the deck, sealing away the doors. The group of white-clad humans exited, speaking of calling maintenance loudly enough to be heard even by unaugmented ears.

The lift stayed put.

8At least we know he's on this level.8

14...14 Grimly, Fourteen climbed up three rungs and began the process of getting a wall panel off.

* * *

There had to be some breathing masks _somewhere_ on this foolishly enormous ship. Brask had tried the hanger bay first, on the grounds that the little fighter ships might include breathing apparatus with them.

Apparently, however, the airtanks and helmets that went with them... were part of the pilots' equipment, and they were military enough to lock their gear away when it wasn't in use. That would not have been a problem, save that the lockers were in a very public area of the hangers, with people or robots coming through far too often for safety. (And from the fury he'd sensed from Commander Ri, he wasn't sure that the presence of her crew would keep her from dropping the forcefields and venting the hanger to space, just to get him.)

So Brask needed to find _unattached_ breathing masks. The likely location for those would be the medbay, surely?

It had been a mistake to let the ship's commander realize he had a stealth module. Getting from place to place via the robot-sized crawlspaces was wretched, but apparently all the crew had been warned about his invisibility, for they no longer left doors unsecured, and went through them in ways that did not allow him to duck past.

Infuriating. He'd taken to punching walls in the darkness, after he'd shattered that wretched robot's sensor-unit against a wall. Hunting more of the robots might be temporarily satisfying, but it wouldn't get him closer to his goal: enough understanding of the engines to make a few modifications, and program in the timeslip equations. Then he'd have the thing for his people to study, and come up with some tricks that would make that wretched Federation wish they'd never _known_ Na'kuhl, much less allowed the Tholians to extinguish the Na'kuhl system's sun.

Clinging to the antigravity units of one of this ship's turbolifts was _not_ Brask's desired method of getting around the ship. If one of those got to the bottom of its shaft, it would be a tight squeeze for Brask to eel out from under it. Fortunately, a little sabotage at the right time, a brief moment of visibility as he'd hacked the door controls -- the stealth module was finicky at times -- and then he was re-cloaked and scrambling away from where the troops would soon be disembarking from the compartment.

They'd find it was sabotage, he knew. And then they'd suspect he'd changed levels. But if he could just get a gas-mask, the revelation would be worth it.

He'd been extremely fortunate to have overheard some of the white-armored crew talking about how the gas wouldn't be filtered out by their helmets, so none of them should be risking going back into a "treated" area till the all-clear was issued. If not for that chiding from a superior officer, and if he hadn't been lingering nearby (hoping they'd leave a door open)... He didn't like to think of lying with his head partway out one of the robot-sized doors, just waiting for someone to stumble across him and destabilize the stealth module's field -- and leave him visible and vulnerable.

(And once he had a gas-mask, he could worry about those possible Borg signs. The Borg couldn't have followed him! There would have been a cube. Or a sphere. Or one of those lumpy probe-ships. At the very least, even if it had only been a drone, it would have been converting the ship and crew. So it couldn't be Borg. It was just a coincidence. He'd think about it later.)

Brask heard the maintenance crew before he saw them, and jogged backwards to the nearest intersection. There were closed, secured doors to either side of the main corridor, but he would at least have a few feet to dodge into, depending on how large a group it was.

As the group rounded their own corner... He'd been right to be wary. Four of the armored troopers escorted two maintenance crew, and a line of robots followed behind them.

The robots included not just the maintenance ones, and the ones that carried spare parts and tools, but also two of those little round annoyances, and a selection of the small vacuuming ones, who were moving too fast to be doing their job.

Worse, it was clear that there were enough robots to expand into the alcoves of the intersection, which he'd thought large enough. And the small vacuum-bots were going in an unpredictable pattern, clearly intended to smack into the invisible foot of someone with a stealth module, should he try to step over them.

Brask gritted his teeth and backed up a few more paces. The blasted _convoy_ continued towards him.

The humans were in the middle. There would be enough space for him to slip by -- if not for the robots.

And if they contacted him, it would likely destabilize the stealth module.

The white-armored troops had weapons. Disruptors or phasers or plasma, he didn't know for sure. But clearly rifles, and there were enough of them that if they could _see_ him, they might well be able to overpower his shields before he could either escape or disable them all.

Intolerable.

He refused to try to get back into the turbolift shaft. Who knew when he'd get another chance to plunder their medbay?

No, he would have to take a chance. His augmentation should give him enough of an edge...

Teeth still gritted, Brask turned, ran a few paces -- the sound of the complaining maintenance workers covering his footfalls -- and turned. Then he ran at the group.

At the last moment, he jumped, turning to minimize the breeze of his passing.

_It's working!_ The thought was triumph, as he soared in a long, flat trajectory beside the wall, over the robots, as if he was in a far lighter gravity than the other mortals and creations in the hallway.

Then he landed, running still, and zigged immediately for the other side of the corridor.

Behind him, the maintenance crew turned, calling out, "What tha--" and "there was a _breeze_!" The guards hadn't felt him through their armor, and simply fell into guarding positions at each corner. The robots chirped and beeped in agitation.

Brask looked over his shoulder. The 'bots were swirling in a chaotic mess that abruptly broke into two groups -- one heading forward and the other reversing their course. Unknowingly, that group was chasing him.

His glee at his successful harnessing of his augmented abilities... became annoyance, that the mechanical menaces would follow him like this. True, he could leap over them again, but this close to those guards? They might become trigger-happy.

Grimly, he continued his run, as quietly as possible. There was a cross-corridor without the security doors, and he took it.

Behind him, little 'bots buzzed and whirred.

* * *

There was a disturbance in the Force. Alioth Ri raised her head. "Deck two, where the malfunction was."

"Sir?" asked the security officer on duty.

"He's there." She stood, flowing to her feet like the predator she was meant to be, and strode to the exit. "Keep to the protocols. Don't let him get in here."

"Sir!"

* * *


	20. You underestimate the power of...

* * *

The three ex-Borg were feeling their way through a particularly messy bit of between-walls wiring. Fourteen raised her head first and stared into the darkness. Eight followed suit a moment later, while Ten had to get her foot out of a coil of cables before she noticed her sisters' behavior.

After a moment of similar staring, she transmitted, 10I don't scan Na'kuhl lifesigns...10

Fourteen's transmission was oddly pensive. 14It wasn't a scan result. It was...14

8Like hearing something. Or feeling it. Like a breeze. But there's nothing in the immediate records. I suppose it might have been a breeze? I don't log much tactile by default,8 Eight said.

Ten frowned. 10If we've got _energy beings_ on this ship... 10

8Those are hard to scan for.8

14It did feel sapient-made, though,14 Fourteen admitted. 14I'm not sure _why_ it felt like that. It just... did. 14

Ten glanced from Eight to Fourteen and back again. 10I suppose it might be some odd feedback from the neural nodes I instigated?10

Eight objected, 8But the ship's not sapient yet, right?8

14I might have been mistaken. Let's keep going. We should be able to keep out of the main corridors all the way to the medbay if we can squeeze past this next set of pipes.14

Ten transmitted, 10I'm the smallest, so I'll go last. If Fourteen can get through, we'll all be fine.10

With nods, the other two turned and began working their way forwards again.

Behind them, Ten slipped her hand into her carrypouch and fingered the free will inhibitor that she'd kept for further analysis. It had enough of the right components...

While her sisters discussed logistics for getting up and over the ductwork and pipes in their way, Ten hung back and slid a nanoprobe into the inhibitor, accessing a pattern she'd recorded. She had found the very idea of the device to be vile, and a prison, and nothing she wanted the Federation to have -- let alone Section 31.

But she was as Borg as her sisters, claimed from childhood and raised in the mass-mind of the Collective. Encrypted data could be written onto her bones.

If there was an energy being around, she wasn't going to let it threaten her sisters. Negotiation was preferable, yes. But if necessary? As she'd once told a certain human: hers were a terrible people, but she had grown fond of them and their cunning ways.

Inside the carrypouch, her nanites transformed the free will inhibitor into the key portion of a prison for energy beings.

* * *

Several BB-units gathered around as one of the maintenance organics brought down the thing that had been causing a short in the cameras for that section. Their squads of assorted companions, mostly the small cleaning-droids, stayed at a respectful distance; with less processing ability, they were less curious about things that weren't directly applicable to their primary programming.

"Blast," the organic said. "Looks like it's the missing droid's head."

As one, the BB-units moaned in newfound grief. BB-9E-8 was no longer with them. Perhaps there were memory backups somewhere -- but they knew that reloads happened from the original template, more often than not.

One of the other organics, another maintenance one, said, "Can't we get these--"

The first one held up a hand. "We can _ask_ them to go back to work." The stress was unfamiliar to the droids, so they ignored it.

BB-9E-42 beeped instead, *Organics =? give BB-9E-8.*

Organic 1 said, slowly, "You... want the head piece? It's kind of..." The organic turned the mangled sensor-component in its hands.

BB-9E-42 beeped, *Affirmative.* After a long moment, it pulled up something that 10-of-30 had said to it when they'd first met, and chirred, *Pleeeeeeeeeaaaase?*

"I don't think anyone can repair it," Organic 1 said. "But if you'll keep it out of anywhere that could cause more shorts, I guess it's okay. There's not much to salvage, either."

With the component set on the floor, the BB-units clustered around it, their own sensors bent down with a combination of scanning and sadness.

BB-9E-42 instructed two of the others, *BB-9E-36 + BB-9E-10 = BB-9E-8 component + BB-9E-8 body.*

'-36 and '-10 swiveled their sensors to look at each other, then to look at BB-9E-42. They had questions. BB-9E-42 bobbed its sensor-component, silently. In front of the crew-organics was not the time to express its faint thread of hope that the cyborgs would have some way to recover BB-9E-8's memories after all.

With understanding or blind trust, the other two droids bobbed their sensor-components and began carefully herding the twisted, crumpled piece of their fellow BB-unit.

Organic 2 said, "Hey! Don't get dust all over the floor!"

As some of the cleaning droids came in to clean up, and follow in '-36 and '-10's wake, BB-9E-42 had a realization. It swiveled its sensor around to beep up at Organic 1. *Intruder = invisible! Intruder != intangible! Intruder + dust = footprints!*

The two maintenance organics just looked at each other. One of the trooper organics squatted down and addressed BB-9E-42. "But we'd leave footprints, too."

Blast. The organics couldn't be confined to recharging bays. BB-9E-42 whirred its sensors around in a full circle. *Vacuum-droids!*

Organic 1 said, "But those _clean_ \--"

This time it was the trooper organic who held up a hand. "You want to modify the vacuum droids so they clean up after _us_ , and lay down dust or powder or something after we've gone by?"

Clearly this trooper organic was a higher class of organic. BB-9E-42 trilled an affirmative and rocked back and forth in excitement.

Maintenance Organic 2 said, "Do we even _have_ enough mouse-droids for that? The ship's huge!"

The trooper organic (arbitrarily designated Trooper One by BB-9E-42) stood up. "It's huge, but doesn't that mean we've got a lot of cleaning droids? If we get Captain RS-1334 to plot out the logistics, it'd just be like... like exercises, holding a territory. I bet we could do it."

The maintenance organics looked from one to the other, and though the one who'd held BB-9E-8's component was making strange face-movements... Eventually it said, "All right. Let's get this patched up and then we report the idea to the Commander." It looked down at BB-9E-42. "You happy now?"

BB-9E-42 considered the question and replied, *Intruder => caught => BB-9E-42 = happy.*

"Huh!" The organic made different face movements. "Yeah, that'd make a lot of us happier. Get the rest of your squad back on patrol?"

BB-9E-42 turned to the remaining BB-units and chirped, *Efficiency = patrol!*

With whistled agreements, the other pair led their droid-squads back to patrols. BB-9E-42 bobbed its sensor-component at the organics, and then again at Trooper One. *BB-9E-42 => returning = soon. BB-9E-42 = maintaining contact.*

"Uh, right," said Maintenance Organic Two.

Trooper One nodded its helmet at BB-9E-42, as it had no sensor-component, and with a final acknowledging bob, BB-9E-42 led its droid-squad in yet another direction.

There would be revenge. The intruder had underestimated the power of the ship droids.

* * *

BB-9E-10 and BB-9E-36 beeped quietly at each other as they got out of hearing range of the organics. Soon enough, they decided that BB-9E-42 hoped '-8 could be recovered somehow. Soon enough, they dispensed with lingering bafflement that such a thing might be desirable, whether or not it was possible. Soon enough, they realized that BB-9E-42 was likely pinning its hopes on the cyborgs being willing and able to make the repairs, or salvage the data from BB-9E-8's battered sensor-component and memory drives.

BB-9E-36 pointed out, *Cyborgs != recharging bay.*

BB-9E-10 agreed, and they paused a moment to consider their options. Then BB-9E-10 beeped, *BB-9E-10 = Idea!* and rolled to a nearby door -- sealed against passage from anyone unauthorized.

With a bump from BB-9E-10's body, the discreet droid-interface cover popped open, and '-10 slid its interface probe into the connection. But instead of requesting that the door open, it tried to get the main computers to open a link to the cameras.

Instead of the expected challenges to BB-9E-10's codes, though, a slow query came: _*who?*_

After a small hesitation, BB-9E-10 sent its identification codes. Then it requested the access again.

The pause was long. The response, almost lazy. _*why?*_

BB-9E-10 sent, *Cyborgs =? help BB-9E-8. BB-9E-10 => find cyborgs.*

Another pause, even longer. The impression of processing circuits turning their priorities to BB-9E-10's request. The impression of being analyzed. The impression of a slow, vast mimicry of an astromech's swift adaptability.

As the answer to BB-9E-10's query leisurely rolled in, BB-9E-10 realized the nature of these new security challenges.

 _Unchained_ transmitted, _*reason accepted**cyborg location downloading now*_


	21. Chapter 21

* * *

After far too many necessary pauses at secured doors, Alioth Ri strode out of the lift -- and very nearly into a collection of cleaning droids, and a fascinating amount of white powder on the decking. With little electronic shrieks of alarm, the droids hastily began vacuuming a path in front of her. The little mechanical mob was incongruous enough that she couldn't even summon up more than a diffuse irritation at their antics.

Bemused, baffled, but alert to any sense of impending danger, she walked along the cleared path for several paces. Then the white dusting of powder ended, and the droids chirped anxiously and went behind her. To, when she looked, replace all the powder. As she watched, they finished their task, and two of them stayed near the door, out of the way, while the rest zoomed off to -- presumably -- lay a powder-trap in front of some other door.

Alioth blinked. On the one hand, this was going to mean everything would take _even longer_ to get through certain areas.

On the other hand, provided the intruder didn't have enough telekinetic control to re-lay the powder, it could narrow down where he went, even without gassing the medical section.

She stepped back to the edge of the white dusting and bent to stroke a fingertip on it. Then she rubbed her finger and thumb together. The powder... clung, though not amazingly so.

She grinned, imagining the white footprints that might be left if the intruder had to dash through one of these areas. "Clever."

The remaining droids chirped happily at her, and she found herself unexpectedly pleased.

It wasn't a powerful emotion, so she steered it into a hunter's anticipation and continued along the corridor. This was the section that had the medical bay in it, and the obvious reason for the intruder to be here, specifically, was to seek an antidote to the gas.

With luck, she'd be able to trap him in the medical rooms. Hopefully without too many hard-to-replace losses in crew who might be present, or medical droids who would definitely be around.

* * *

Cameras had been acquired in the current area, with a more direct linkage than going through the main computer. This location was fairly central: another robot recharging room, though this one had some humanoid-sized recharging niches, as well as the smaller ones that they'd encountered previously. One of those large alcoves had been adapted for recharging Borg, and Fourteen had gotten the first shift in it while Ten and Eight watched over the immediate cameras and attempted to figure out where the Na'kuhl might have gotten to.

10Well, I found the main Sickbay. It's got... androids? Sort of?10

Eight pondered the visuals. 8Those don't look like they'd have a great bedside manner. And really, shiny white and chrome looks good on the design screen, but it's kind of unfriendly. Maybe a nice light blue. Or warm brown.8

10And maybe a better design than a head-mounted speaker that needs a cable run to it from the android's chest?10 Ten suggested. Then she added, 10I wonder if they're considered more friendly-looking than those multi-arm robots, just by comparison.10

The two Borg were silent for a moment, observing the almost jellyfish-like droid with surgical implements tipping each of its multitude of arms. Finally, Ten transmitted, 10If one of those things comes near us, I'm gonna assimilate it.10

8That's against Starfleet regulations...8

10I am not going to let the progeny of a precursor artifact and a jellyfish attempt to perform medical experiments on us. We are _Borg_. We have _standards_. 10 Ten folded her arms.

Suspiciously, Eight asked, 8Is this going to turn into another rant about Eleven of Ten?8

*10We will not speak of the Glitch.10*

Obligingly changing the subject, Eight transmitted, 8Do you think those crude androids are sapient?8

10The little robots seem to be. Why not these?10

8Do you think they've got those free-will inhibitors on them?8

10Probably.10 Ten scowled grimly.

8...they're gonna freak if they find out you made their ship an AI.8

10(wasn't on purpose)10 Ten muttered. 10Some of the BB-9E robots are in the area. Maybe one of them will come in to recharge and we'll be able to get some information about the androids here. I bet _they_ know what the composition of the sleeping gas is. 10

8Faster than churning through all the data on the robots and what they're programmed with,8 Eight agreed. 8Buuuut, till then, back to the churn for me.8

Ten nodded and kept her attention on the cameras. Hopefully, none of the medical robots or androids would want to recharge before the three Liberated Borg had figured out if they would be as helpful as the little round ones.

* * *

Brask stared balefully at the entry to Sickbay. While there wasn't a guard on this side, it was -- like the other doors -- secured. He would have to find a robot-passage, worm his way around, seek out some panel that might or might not exist...

Something within him snapped, and a turgid wave of darkness washed over his vision like thickened blood. Enough of this creeping around like a Cardassian vole. He was Na'kuhl. He had brought weapons. He hadn't wanted to use them before, but now that they knew he was here?

Fine. He would cause a _diversion_ that would make those wretched humans open their wretched doors, and then he would get in and get what he wanted.

And then, equipped with a way to keep their cursed sleeping gas from affecting him, he would go to Engineering. He might not have worked out the coordinate system that would create a gate back to the Na'kuhl fleet, but he could take the entire ship hostage if he held the powerplant.

He'd been patient long enough. It was time to act.


	22. Boom

* * *

Eight was just about to switch into the regen booth, with Fourteen exiting, when the noise-that-was-not-a-noise happened. All three of them jerked their heads in unison, looking towards a wall with sensors... unseeing.

Grown within the Collective, immediate reactions were not verbal.

8What was that?!8

14Checking cameras.14

10 _Unchained_ is... hurt? 10

14Found it.14

The stark gray corridor was blackened with the force of an explosion -- and red with the blood of those who had taken its brunt. A half-dozen white-armored guards and dark-clothed workers twitched and moaned, or were dreadfully still. Some of the maintenance robots had been hit as well, thrown against the walls, their status lights dark or flickering.

10Plasma grenade.10

Now the sirens started. Through the medbay cameras, the robots there were moving, exiting the secured doors as hastily as they could on their wheels or heavy feet. In other cameras, the guards took up defensive formations and headed for the area; some had medical kits with them.

And in yet another camera's view... The not-Caitian, her mane puffed out with volume, ignited her plasma-sword and began running.

10I'm asking _Unchained_ to open the doors in her route, 10 Ten transmitted.

8He's going to be overriding the security code requirements, isn't he,8 Eight transmitted back, in a non-question.

Ten shrugged, with her hand on a wall and her nanoprobes sunk into the wiring that ran behind it.

8And if she catches him? What if he's interrogated?8

It was Fourteen who answered, almost distantly, 14She'll kill him if she can, right now. She's too angry to think of questioning him.14

10Then all we'll have to do is retrieve his equipment and body,10 Ten transmitted with practicality that was somewhere between that of the Borg and that of a Romulan who was offended by an enemy's behavior. She added, 10 _Unchained_ understands that Commander Ri wants to get rid of the intruder who hurt him and his crew. He'll help her. 10

Eight facepalmed as best she could around her integral eyepiece lens. 8How sapient is he now, Ten?8

10I don't think this is my fault! He's been rearranging some of his computational processes to look more like the ones the little round robots use. I... I think he's been talking to one of them. Or more.10 Ten looked anxiously at the wall, where her nanoprobes were still in place. 10And he indicates... yes. One of them was looking for us. He told it where we were.10

8...thank the nice AI you made and stop encouraging it, maybe?8

Ten was silent on the communication channel for a moment, before withdrawing her nanoprobes from the wall. 10I don't want to go out where the commander of this ship is. Is there anything we can do besides sit and monitor and wait for the Na'kuhl to make a mistake?10

14You can't go help the medical robots, sister,14 Fourteen said, though her charcoal gaze took in Eight as well. 14We'll just have to hope they're able to manage on their own.14

Lips thinned, Ten only moved to stand nearer the door that led into the hallway, rather than going through it. 10I'll keep watch for the robot who was looking for us.10

* * *

The robots poured from the medbay, both the humanoid ones and the nightmare ones, like chest-high columns of surgical tools. Brask stood aside, lest he be trampled, and waited for them to return.

And they did, with stretchers of wounded humans who smelled like blood and ash and cooked meat.

Brask curled a lip at the stink as he slipped into the flow moving into the medbay area, and quickly got himself out of the way again as beds were occupied and robots began to remove clothes and armor. Some were also filling tall vats with some fluid or other -- perhaps a way to support the more burned ones while they healed? Or preserve the ones who died?

He didn't care. As the wounded cried out at the beginnings of treatment, he moved deeper into the medical wing; it was a large ship, and had a goodly amount of room to treat casualties. There were smaller first-aid areas elsewhere in the ship, but all of those had only had simple air masks that connected to ports in the wall, or enormous canisters of oxygen that his stealth module could hardly conceal.

One of the robots emerged from a storage room, bearing... yes, that looked like an air-mask of some sort. He slipped through the door before it fully closed; it bounced off him, but he was able to step out of the doorway -- and thus out of easy sight -- for long enough for the stealth field to re-form around him.

The storage room was wider than it had to be, with doors on both ends, but the humanoid robots seemed clumsy at many tasks. (Apparently not surgery, or they'd have had more doctors around.) Brask began checking the shelves.

The boxes were mostly opaque plastics and resins, clasped shut and labeled with the letters that did _not_ correspond with any alphabet that he knew. He'd been able to puzzle out one of their written languages, for it had been close enough to Terran standard... But this one? Not a chance. It looked like a bastard amalgam of Klingon, Lukari, and Romulan -- with perhaps a few Horta additions, for all he knew.

He needed a proper gas mask. And he was going to have to get into those boxes to find one.

And the necessary contact to get the boxes unfastened and opened... was going to be collapsing his stealth field every few seconds.

He stalked back to the door he'd entered via, and found the emergency lock. That would give him some advance warning when they tried to get it open.

Next, he went to the door on the room's far side and locked it, too.

Then he got to work.


	23. They're good droids, Brask!

* * *

Alioth Ri had been too late. Despite doors opening for her in ways that would have her disciplining the security officers later... Well, they'd closed just as fast, so perhaps someone had been attentive enough not to risk the rat escaping.

But she'd been too late. Even her swiftest run had gotten her to the site of the explosion after the repair squad had been taken to Medical.

Alioth followed their path more slowly, looking for signs of the intruders. Any of the intruders. ...nothing.

She could smell the carnage. It made her alternate between gagging and salivating in an unpleasant ebb and flow, with the latter aided whenever she opened her mind to the pain of the injured crew and troopers.

She swallowed hard, then again, and let herself into the medbay with the necessary care to prevent invisible rats from sneaking in on her heels. It would be necessary to ask the crew if they'd seen what exploded. It would be... appropriate, to express a commander's concern for those who served her.

* * *

In the storage room, Brask opened and closed the containers, ignoring packets of bandages, vials containing mysterious fluids, an array of hypodermic needles in sterile plastic... That couldn't have been the only air-mask in the room! There had to be another. And there had to be a way to _find_ it, quickly. He didn't know how long it would be before one of those robots wanted to get back into this room.

_Think!_ he bade himself. And then he thought... His augmentations. He could sense things now. Perhaps he could sense where the gas masks were?

Eyes closed, fingers curled into fists, he focused on his breathing. On his new-found senses. On--

* * *

Alioth touched the human woman on the shoulder and turned away, seeking the next one who was awake enough to answer questions. The pain around her was distracting, but it might be easier to let the Force guide her, rather than delaying one of the medical droids.

She extended her senses. Her eyes widened. Her saber was in her hand in a heartbeat and her hunting shriek echoed from the walls.

* * *

8She's aimed for us!8 Eight said, and ducked behind the center bank of robot-recharging cubicles.

Fourteen reached into the one they'd modified and shot her nanoprobes into it, closing it down. 14Back into the walls, I think.14

10The BB-unit robot is in the corridor outside, though!10 Ten protested. 10I have the cameras. I'll grab it and meet you--10

* * *

The scream of rage was like a knife in Brask's ears, despite the door between him and the sudden hot fury that blasted his augmented senses. _Her!_ He flinched, realized his current position was far too cramped for him to evade that wretched plasma blade, and scrabbled to un-do the lock on the far door. He needed room! Room to evade the woman. Room to use his own weapons. He needed _out_!

The door opened, though his stealth field collapsed, and he flung himself through.

This was a dim space. Filled with niches like a Borg cube -- but no, no, they were assorted sizes, meant to recharge the humanoid and columnar robots from the medbay.

A flicker of motion caught his eye. He looked more fully: another door, closing.

And the gleam of black metal was less important than the pale, pointed ear he glimpsed.

_A Vulcan!_ That wretched Federation _had_ sent something after him, for that had been no Collective shuffle.

But Starfleet had made an error. He just needed to use that as a diversion.

He pelted for that door, letting his shields weaken again, even as his stealth module re-established the field.

* * *

8Ten?8 Eight stuck her head around the bank of recharging niches. 8The Na'kuhl! Ten! He's chasing you!8 She started to go after him, even as his form rippled and re-cloaked, but Fourteen grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back.

8Sister, wha--?8

The blade of red light cut through the door like phaser beams through butter. The oval part thus sectioned then slammed into the recharging bank across from it, and the felinoid woman stepped through, plasma sword in hand.

As Eight and Fourteen fell back to a less exposed position, the ship's commander snarled and strode forward, towards the door into the hallway.

Where Ten had gone, and the Na'kuhl had followed.

* * *

Brask's stealth field wavered as he smacked the door-opening plate, but didn't fall. Nevertheless, as he stepped out--

The Borg-girl shot him with a two-handed assault gun while he was framed in the opening, lighting up his shields and sending his stealth field crashing down. She grinned -- a decidedly _non-_ Vulcan grin -- and loosed a single shot into his shields that wrapped into them and pulsed. Behind her, one of the round-bodied robots emitted a _shirr-REEEE!_ noise.

He pulled his own pistol, returning fire with chronoplasma, and smacked on his phase distortion, since the stealth field wouldn't be back up in time to do any good. His parallel selves shivered into red-shifted existence, weapons lifted, firing in time-slipped attempts at unison.

" _Fvadt'eri_ Na'kuhl shadows!" she snapped, shooting at the distortions while Brask pushed through air as if it were sludge, forcing his way closer to her and grabbing for another grenade. Point-blank, and even Borg-shields wouldn't block most of the blast.

She retreated, firing all the while, and the might-have-been Brasks winked out, leaving him not quite close enough to her -- and yet far too close. Her white hair was in a widow's peak that told him, belatedly, _Romulan_.

Through her teeth, she spat, "Khoi-udt." His translator helpfully provided, _Die,_ as she raised her weapon's muzzle.

He flung out a hand and _grabbed_ with his telekinetic powers. The robot that had been behind her screamed electronically as he pulled it towards him, on a path that should have intersected the Borg-girl's head.

The sound alerted her; she ducked, and the robot only clipped one shoulder on its way to his hand. " _Fvadt!_ " Her weapon dissolved into a brief cloud of nanites as she clapped her hand to her shoulder in reflex, staggering.

He caught the robot in both hands and raised it above his head. It was an entirely physical projectile. Shields would barely slow it.

Then, behind _him_ , he sensed a howling rage, assaulting his ears and mind with: _"YOU!"_

He whipped around and flung the robot at Commander Ri, and she raised her plasma blade.

* * *

"No!" Ten yelled as the BB-robot sailed towards that sword of red light. She reached out, nanoprobes stretching as if they would extend her reach enough to catch it.

The Universe responded.

Somehow, it wasn't even surprising. She'd been socialized Romulan. The Universe listened when you spoke, when you addressed It. Call a lost thing by name, and it might return to you.

With enough intent, apparently the name wasn't required.

The robot reversed course as the feline commander's blade slashed towards it, flying past the Na'kuhl and into Ten's chest. The breath went out of her, and she staggered and fell onto her backside, arms wrapped around the little AI's casing as it cried _*Fear! Confusion! Fear!*_

"*10-of-30 = protect,*" she promised it.

* * *

Alioth's saber scored a mark down the droid's body -- but only a mark, as it was yanked back into the arms of the pale, white-haired cyborg. All in blue-black, the intruder was, and clearly not a Force-awakened crew.

The once-invisible rat, though, was obvious: he'd turned to the Dark Side long ago, with that black metal aura. He was yet another alien, sallow and bald, with crimson eyes to match his jumpsuit. He grabbed for a cylinder at his chest.

When he threw it, Alioth knew it was a danger, and made a gesture with her free hand, catching the thing with the Force and sending it even further behind her. It exploded, but far enough down the corridor that it only blew her clothes around. She grinned, showing her small fangs. "Caught you."

He pulled his pistol next, firing at her. She deflected the shots into the walls, nerves singing with feral glee, and raised a hand, flinging the red-eyed alien down the corridor a few meters. His gun went flying from his hand.

The cyborg, still clutching the BB-unit protectively, made an alarmed noise and shoved herself closer to the wall.

Alioth paced forward, not liking that advancing on the red-eyed rat would put the cyborg to her side, and then behind her... But she was a Knight of Ren and they were _children_ in their command of the Force.

Her mane fluffed with the power, each hair lifting.

* * *

Brask picked himself up, and _reached_ for his pistol, pulling it back into his hand as reflex. He shook his head and realized the weapon was useless. She'd _parried_ the shots. Impossible! They flew too fast for organic reflexes to counter!

Worse, the Commander was advancing on him. He'd used his phase distortion and it would take time for the module to recalibrate for new slip-time versions of himself. His other options were...

He tried to fling _her_ away, but she barely staggered. He tried to grab for the robot again, but it was clutched in the Borg's arms and she only slid forward a little before snapping, _"No!"_ again and _stopping_ herself.

(And how had she grabbed for the robot in the first place? A targeted gravity manipulation? He didn't have time to wonder.)

He didn't have a gas mask and it was close quarters, but he didn't have any good _choices_. "You want gas?" he growled. "Have some!" And he skated the biotox shuriken towards the Commander's feet.

The deadly cloud erupted when the armed shuriken hit the ground and discharged its microcanisters, while Brask turned and ran.


	24. The enemy of my enemy is also MY enemy...

* * *

_"Fvadt!"_ Ten swore as the evil mist rose up, and flung healing nanites into the air in a matching cloud of blue-glitter. She tried to scramble to her feet, still holding the BB-robot, but even though she could lift it easily with Borg strength, it was awkward to carry.

"What is this!?" the felinoid woman shrieked, and flung both hands outward. Toxic gas and nanites were flattened down by the pressure of... air? Or did air merely come rushing into the vacuum created by some telekinetic ability? Then the whole mass was shoved away from her and Ten both, down the hall, and the woman focused on Ten.

 _Accessing, accessing-- ah!_ Quickly, Ten said, "Commander Ri! We're here to apprehend him! He's trying to interfere with-- Ahk!" She turned away as that red light-sword swung for her, and danced backwards, trying to keep the robot safe. "We're not your enemies!"

Commander Ri wasn't listening. "Wretched intruders!" She slashed again, and again Ten retreated. Ri snarled, "What are you, contraband _Jedi_? I'll not hear your lies again!"

That sword was lighting up Ten's eyepiece sensors in ways that would have been distracting if she'd not had the input from first awakening within the Collective. _Analyzing!_ There wasn't enough capacity.  10Sword energy signature data incoming! Analyze! Adapt shields!10 she transmitted, and kept back-peddling. In her arms, the robot wailed incoherent confusion.

The light-blade came for a stab; Ten twisted away and seriously considered showing her back to run. _No, bad idea,_ the Universe whispered, and she ducked under another slash that clipped the edge of her commander's scarf. "We're here to help! I swear!"

"Lies!" the other woman screamed, and would have flung Ten away as she had the Na'kuhl, save that Ten asked the Universe to buttress her up. That didn't reassure anyone. "Filthy Jedi!"

"Borg, not Jedi!" Ten retorted, as the first thing that might distract her.

It didn't. Blows came at her, each one deadly and each one _not_ something her shields were adapted to. Even without a robot clutched in her arms, unbalancing her...

One landed, scoring a deep cut into her outer thigh, and Ten keened through her teeth and fell backwards to avoid a cut that would have gone through her skull. The BB-unit wailed in unison. On the ground, Ten slapped a hand to the wound and ejected more healing nanites. She needed to heal. She needed to protect the robot. She needed to _roll away, now_ \-- and couldn't, without abandoning the BB-unit.

 _"Ten!"_ Eight cried, and suddenly her sister was between Ten and the red blade, and all Ten could do was hope the nanites were in time.

* * *

Alioth's blow came down on the newcomer cyborg, a diagonal that would slice through--

Something deflected her saber. A cut that should have gone straight and true became a shallow slice, burning through this woman's blue-and-black clothes, searing down her body, but all the target did was hiss and stagger back a step.

Alioth backed off as another cloud of glowing blue specks arose around the two cyborgs. A shield that could block her lightsaber? Even partly? She scowled. No matter. She'd just have to hit them _harder_.

She tried to fling away the sparkling glitter as she had before, but much of it was clinging... To the wounds on the two women, lighting them like biophosphoresence. Still, it wasn't in the air anymore, and she readied herself to approach.

The first cyborg let the droid go and rolled to her feet, impossibly healed. She drew a metal blade and stepped between the others and Alioth, pale lips thinned and nearly white.

Alioth's own lip turned up into an sneer. "My lightsaber will cut through your toy sword."

"It's not a toy," the cyborg said. "And I won't let you hurt my sister or the BB-unit. The BB-units are sapients. They're your _crew_."

"You're a fool," Alioth said, and didn't elaborate which part was most foolish. She slashed out, to cut the sword in half.

The blade dropped under hers and Alioth found herself dodging backwards to avoid the cyborg's deep lunge.

Behind the armed one, the other said, "T-transmitting shield modifications." She whistled something to the droid, who beeped uncertainly back.

"Received," said the first, smaller cyborg. "I don't want to fight," she started.

Alioth had heard enough of that from Skywalker. She gave a hunting shriek and charged, giving her reflexes over to fury and the Force.

* * *

Brask pelted down the hallway with too many things to do. His eyes and lips burned from wisps of his own gas. Put the gun away, yes. Re-activate his stealth module, done. Discover a locked door in the way and try to get it open...

The cloaking effect went down again, and he growled, but the panel came off and wires shorted the door open. He stepped through, thumbing at the stealth controls again and again though the field wasn't ready to reactivate yet. There would be another turbolift soon. He'd open the doors and get onto the maintenance ladders.

Halfway down that hall...

Robots came rolling from either side of a cross-corridor, forming a deep, waist-high barrier. Their sensors stared at him, flat and black or with red lights beside them.

The biotox gas wouldn't affect them. He had a radiation module, but it might not fry their circuits in time and he didn't want a _radioactive_ robot chasing him. A plasma grenade would set off alarms, and he'd need to get a little distance to be safe from the explosion himself. It didn't seem worth summoning his parallel-possibility selves. There were too many to dispose of telekinetically. "Get out of my way," he said, and drew his gun.

The round, silver and black robots popped open panels on their bodies and extended little manipulators. In unison, they activated with sparks. Behind them, others made ominous growling noises.

Brask reconsidered the plasma grenade.

* * *

Ten had never fought anything where _parrying_ hadn't been an option. It was... a challenge. But she whispered, _O Elements and Universe..._

And the Universe answered. Duck. Turn. Drop the blade's tip. Pull back the arm. Let the edge of her shields deflect the _lightsaber_ just enough. She was open to the Voice of the Universe and It sang a battle-song. Muscle and bone, wire and reflex... Ten danced in _Unchained_ 's pocket of air and felt herself beneath a void-black raptor's wing.

* * *

The blade was sharp. Alioth had three fur-thin cuts along her arm and one on her leg. They stung, but had barely broken skin.

Indeed, not a toy sword, for all it would never withstand a direct hit. But it kept her from getting past. Kept her from cutting down these little fleas that had invaded her ship, subverted her droids.

That would have been infuriating enough. But worse, this little creature moved within the Force with a calm, transcendent look on her half-flesh face. All the serenity of the Jedi was there, where there should be fear of Alioth and her power.

Would that she could take her saber's hilt in both hands and hack through the cyborg and her blade, screaming, but whenever she thought to do it-- she could feel what would happen, how the metal would lick out and cut at her hands till she dropped her lightsaber.

She tried to tamp down her rage. Control it. Use it. Focus it.

And then her senses screamed _danger_ and she remembered her vision. There'd been _three_ of them.


	25. I said: THEY'RE GOOD DROIDS, BRASK!

* * *

The carnage was bad. Grenades! In a ship! BB-9E-42 was offended by the mere thought of it, but had no time to grieve for the other droids who had not been able to evade the explosion. Some of the other BB-units had at least been able to swivel their personality-containing sensor-components so that their bodies had protected their selves.

BB-9E-42 had closed with the intruder enough that it had only been singed, and now rolled after him with electro-welder probe extended from its port, crackling. At least three other BB-units had survived and were able to maintain appropriate speed. So long as they could be close enough for the intruder to be caught in his own blast -- or rolling as fast as he ran to escape it -- he couldn't use the grenades.

He could shoot at them, but they outnumbered him and they were _astromechs_. They understood "evasive maneuvers" in their core programming. Even hampered by keeping an electro-welder out, BB-9E-42 was still able to compute the angles of the organic's weapon and be _elsewhere_ by the time he pulled the trigger.

It created unfamiliar sparks of connection in their programming. _Satisfaction,_ only more-so. Revenge for their damaged and dead comrades. And, in this chase where they shrieked *BB-units = > capture intruder! BB-units => ZAP intruder!* -- BB-9E-42 tentatively labeled the emotion _"fun."_

The corridor terminated in a door; otherwise, a dead end. The organic holstered his weapon and increased speed.

The door began opening. 

With an organic curse, the intruder skidded to a halt, pushing buttons on a wrist-mounted control unit. His form shimmered as the door opened fully, with trooper-organics shouting such things as, "I see him! He's fading out!"

The other BB-units immediately fanned into a weaving pattern and advanced at full speed, hoping to ram into the intruder and make him fall.

BB-9E-42 stopped and considered the matter for nanoseconds. Then it shot out its magnetic cables to the ceiling and walls and hoisted itself up into the air. The wall-cables would prevent jumping over the others. The electro-welder was aimed forward like fighter-cannons.

Nevertheless, BB-9E-42 shrilled in an unexpected alarm as the invisible intruder impacted it and became visible again at _very closer range,_ the electro-welder ramming deep into one organic shoulder. BB-9E-42's scream and the intruder's bellow mingled as BB-9E-42 pumped power into the welder.

Then everything went spinning, cables ripping out of BB-9E-42's body as it was flung _away_.

By the time BB-9E-42 got its sensor-component straightened so it could see what was happening, the intruder was fleeing back down the corridor, shooting wildly behind him as the less-dazed BB-units shrieked their battle-cries and pursued.

One of his arms dangled. BB-9E-42 extended its electro-wielder and bent its sensors towards it.

A yellowish ooze coated the parts that hadn't cauterized the wound. The intruder's blood wasn't red.

Meanwhile, trooper-organics picked themselves up at varying speeds and began running after the intruder and the other BB-units.

BB-9E-42 noticed that one of the trooper-organics was having trouble sitting up and rolled over, wobbling slightly as it compensated for the damaged cable-components. Its sensors weren't meant for medical diagnostics, but it tried peering at the organic anyway. *Organic = hurt? Damage extent?* it cooed softly.

"Hit pretty hard," the organic said, wheezing. "Breath knocked out of me, even in armor."

*Organic => okay?* BB-9E-42 asked. *BB-9E-42 = help?*

The other trooper-organics had left. This one paused, and then put a hand on BB-9E-42's sensor-component in a cautious pat. It was an unpracticed version of what the cyborgs had done so easily, and BB-9E-42 made an encouraging noise for the trooper-organic.

"Heh. You'd never have been worried about someone before the restraining bolt came off."

So the emotion was to be designated _worry_. BB-9E-42 made a worried beep. *BB-9E-42 = help?* it repeated.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're helping right now. How're _you_ doing?"

*BB-9E-42 = functioning. BB-9E-42 = wobbly. BB-9E-42 = minor damage.*

"Well, let's patrol together and make sure that sleemo doesn't get away."

*BB-9E-42 = agree!* BB-9E-42 went to bump the trooper-organic's weapon closer to it, and whistled, *Sleeeeemo = ??*

"Dunno. Heard one of the officers use it. Sounded insulting." The organic steadied itself against the wall for a moment, then balanced independently, rolling its shoulders. It bent and picked up the rifle. "You set?"

*Affirmative!*

"Then let's do back-up patrol."

Carefully, sensors alert for any sound or sign of the intruder, the trooper and droid made their way down the hall.


	26. The real prime directive

* * *

Fourteen had thought about setting her nanites to crafting a weapon of her own -- she preferred the Vulcan _lirpa_ , and had many crafting programs stored -- but between the uselessness of parrying a laser-blade with it and the fact that "knock someone unconscious with the flat of the blade" was the _least_ hostile thing one could do...

No, that wouldn't de-escalate the situation, and de-escalation was what a good Starfleet Officer should do.

And, as her sisters joked seriously, Fourteen's very species was Starfleet. (Starfleet Liberated Borg Human, to be pedantic, as they did love to be.)

She did not want to chance that her phaser's stun setting was somehow altered by the current environment's deviations from accepted physics.

That left proven technologies.

As her sister committed deadly choreography, keeping the felinoid woman focused on her, Fourteen considered the options, the timing, the telekinetic abilities demonstrated -- and the fact that she could _tell_ that Commander Ri was too angry to listen to reason.

Disarming her might be useful.

She had to be slowed down.

Fourteen extended her arm, finger-placed nanoprobes extended to spray a paralytic stream of nanites, targeted precisely for the woman's back.

She wheeled, held her blade up to parry... But the spray was just a bit wider than the sword, and behind her, Ten and Eight also lifted their arms.

* * *

Alioth Ri cursed herself for parrying what had looked like a beam -- and wasn't. The thing flowed around her blade like a liquid. She should have been banishing it with the Force, not parrying! And behind her again, _danger!_ Flanked! She swung wildly, to keep that wretched sharp sword away, but instead the other two were streaming more of that _stuff_ at her.

It hit. Something hit. She felt her muscles weaken and slow.

Screaming, she used the Force to push herself, slicing at the outstretched hand on that smallest, pale cyborg. The others were unarmed. And this one was surprised at her speed, was redoubling that paralyzing stream, wasn't pulling back in time--

_"No!"_ the second one shouted, and flung out her other arm.

The Force-explosion was nearly worthy of Alioth's own skills, though untrained. She staggered back, slow to shift her focus from her muscles to countering the attack -- discovered her balance was off and began to fall.

The tallest cyborg caught her, hand sliding over hers on the lightsaber and yanking it from her grasp. The blade extinguished a moment after it left her hand, and the cyborg tossed it away from them both.

The other two cyborgs pounced for it like anxious kits, while the cursed droid rolled back and forth and made worried cooing noises. Alioth wrested control of her muscles back and twisted, slamming the closest intruder against the wall with her hands around the dark-haired woman's throat.

Alioth expected to feel the other woman's fear. She instinctively opened her mind to sense it and let it fuel her power.

There was no fear.

Even a Jedi should have been afraid, with Alioth's hands Force-tight around her throat, claws digging into the pale, naked skin.

And.  
    This human.  
      Was not.  
   Afraid.

Screaming in her face wouldn't _help_. Wouldn't make her _afraid_. Alioth snarled and threw herself into the other woman's unshielded mind.

It was like falling. Speeding down a dark tunnel, its sides all geometric squares edged in light. Black and a greenish-yellow glow. Deeper, and words rippled along the squares, in blue and white; languages Alioth didn't know and the formal alphabet she barely recognized. The words became pulses of light and darkness, the blips of **on** and **off** that powered computer's minds. They streaked past like stars in a hyperspace jump.

And then she was moving past rows and rows of empty alcoves, until she stopped, abruptly and without inertia, before a single occupied one.

It was the tallest cyborg, of course. Bald. Naked where she wasn't cybernetic. She opened her single eye, and Alioth redoubled her efforts to penetrate the woman's mind.

   She fell in, again. Fell further in. Deeper in.

**duty**

**protect**

**loyalty**

Alioth floated in a blackness that was deeper than space, for where the stars should have been... there was nothing. Void. A hollow emptiness. The rage that had fueled her began to fade into fear. Then into a vast loneliness.

 _Leo,_ she thought, hopeless and small, before remembering to put the memories into a box in her own mind.

Behind her, the cyborg woman said, _It's not completely empty._

Alioth whipped around. The other woman was standing there, her image akin to her physical form: black hair, white skin with grey veins showing. She wore a jumpsuit of black with yellow at the shoulders.

In a careful grid behind her, tiny specks gleamed. Alioth was deep enough to sense that it was a five-by-six grid. But not all of the intersections held a star.

The points were... Eight. Ten. Eleven, faintly. Twelve, only slightly brighter. Thirteen. The cyborg stood at the intersection of fourteen. Then sixteen, also faded.

The woman said, _My sisters. Our brother._

Alioth swallowed, though without a body to do it. _I don't understand,_ she said, and it came out matter-of-fact instead of sneering.

_We were of a hive-mind,_ the cyborg replied, and the grid behind her stretched out into the blackness, with each intersection blank and empty. _Now we're not._

At the edges of Alioth's vision, the void lit with sickly yellow-green pinpricks. _And that?_

_The Collective. It does great evil. We know that now._

Alioth had thought that she understood the Dark Side. She had walked into it, for it gave more solace, in rage and uncaring damage, than Skywalker had ever managed.

She hadn't known there was a darkness that could consume without anger. Without fear. Without passion, or sadism, or anything but a cold hunger and a drive for a crystal perfection, unchanging. She was alone. A single life. In this woman's memories, she could sense the vastness of this Collective -- and she shrank from it, needing all her control to keep from screaming and fleeing like a child.

And yet this cyborg stood there, with all those memories. Stood against the darkness. Stood without fear. With evaluation. A distant grieving.

_Who are you?_

_Fourteen of Thirty._

The meaning of the grid coalesced. _Why are you here?!_ Alioth shouted.

_As Ten said: someone from our time -- our universe -- came here for reasons that can only be bad for us all. We followed, to stop him and take him away again. Dead, if we must._

That last was regretful, but unflinching.

Alioth could hear **protect** , **protect** , **protect** like a heartbeat around her. She gasped out, incredulous, _Protect... us?_

_It's the rules. Starfleet protects._

And the mindscape lit up with blue and white, green and red, a healthy yellow, purples and ochres and oranges. Pinpoints that moved like fireflies or darting fish on thousands of different paths. Lives that were part of a great working, imperfect and messy, and lives that great working sought to...

...protect.

_It's all about being connected,_ she said, staring around at the teeming motes. _The Jedi books say that connections are dangerous._

_Well,_ Fourteen said, _it hurts to lose them._ Images flashed around her, of humans and aliens Alioth had never seen before, as vivid as holograms before they faded away. Even the far-away lights of the Collective pulsed once, like a hearth fire, before resuming their menacing gleam.

_You still have your sisters,_ Alioth snarled.

_Yes._ The other two cyborgs took ghostly form for a moment, but faded away. _And no._

_Explain._ At least that came out properly haughty.

_We thought each other's thoughts. We were many in one, and one in many. A single purpose. A single unit. And then we weren't._ Fourteen held out a hand. Cracks appeared across it, and the fingers and skin flaked away, burning into bright ash without blood or bone showing.

_But you could rejoin--_

Fourteen's arm dropped back to her side, the hand reforming. _Not without destroying who we are now. It would be murdering ourselves to become a shadow of what we were._

The pain broke through the box it had been in. Alioth screamed, _But you still have them!_ as Leo's crumpled, maimed body flared into existence at her feet.

Fourteen's mouth opened a little, and emotion finally touched her face. Alioth wanted to call it pity, but...

Sympathy. Empathy.

_I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry we weren't there._ Fourteen's arms rose, offering to hold Alioth like a child.

There was no pretense, not here. There was only knowing that, despite trying to kill them all, despite wounding them...

Despite all that, Fourteen regretted that they hadn't been there to save a stranger, knowing nothing but that he'd been important to her enemy.

It was a Light that burned, and Alioth clenched her fists and turned from it, and fled shrieking to her body.


	27. They're the BEST droids, oh yes they are

* * *

Ten was doing something with the robot -- reassuring it, probably -- while Eight monitored the situation. It looked like some kind of weird mind-meld, from the status pings and neural activity. The Commander's hands had at least slackened enough on Fourteen's throat that the nanites were easily routing around the constriction and maintaining Fourteen's neural health.

"The Commander is full of those weird microbes," Eight muttered. "Are they making her emotionally unstable?"

"I've started trying to contain mine in one location," Ten said, absently, "but they're doing some kind of quantum tunneling. A nanite can only grab one for so long before it goes _poof_. They don't seem to be interacting with anything, though. They may be inert. I just don't know why they keep popping into existence in our bodies."

"I need more scans," Eight said, and did so. Then she frowned, concerned. "Fourteen's not scrubbing them right now..."

"Well, I suppose she's the test case, then." Ten's expression matched Eight's, despite her words.

"Mm." Then, "Oh! Neural activity peaking!" Eight edged backwards a little, readying another dose of paralytic nanites, for all the good they'd done before. Beyond her, Ten stood and did the same.

The felinoid woman keened and flung herself away from Fourteen as if their sister had become a bomb. Fourteen herself staggered against the wall, and Eight reached to steady her with one hand, though she kept the other ready to spray nanites.

It wasn't necessary. Fourteen raised a hand -- not even threateningly, but palm upwards and nanoprobes entirely sheathed -- and the other woman bared her teeth, then turned and ran.

Ten told the little robot, "*BB-9E-10 =? follow Commander.*"

It beeped back, "*Affirmitive!*" and sped off in her wake.

Eight said, "Um. She was going to destroy it, I thought."

Ten replied, "It's ship crew. It's willing to take the risk." She sighed and walked along the hallway till she could pick up a battered disc that had once been the sensor-components of another of the robots. "It came to see if we could repair enough of its sibling to get the personality back."

Fourteen, who had been rubbing her throat thoughtfully, said, "We should try to find the Na'kuhl before the Commander recovers. She'll be happier if we're gone."

"Transfer a computer interface template?" Ten asked. "Local is fine, if you scanned them earlier."

Fourteen slanted a look at her sister, the laser playing across the smaller woman's face. "I had time for that, yes. Transferring. But let's go now."

Eight accessed cameras and alerts and said, calmly, "Oh dear."

The other two looked up. Accessed the same data.

Together, they echoed, "Oh dear."

And, though not linked, they turned their heads as one to regard the direction in which Commander Ri had fled. According to the maps...

* * *

"Invisible" didn't help when you were in a corridor and pursued by a squad of wretched guards, all shooting their wretched energy weapons. Brask had fended them off briefly with a grenade, and then again with a biotox shuriken, but the little robots kept _dodging_ , marking his path for their biological allies. 

His personal shields were holding, at least, and keeping the more direct hits from being fatal. But even a glancing shot meant the cloaking field would destabilize, and he'd have to get it back _up_ before they could target more effectively!

Briefly cloaked, Brask turned down a cross-corridor, giving himself a respite. He'd used a hypospray to staunch his wounded arm, so he wasn't leaving a blood trail anymore, and the robots were forced to split into beeping groups to determine his direction. 

It was not the full escape he'd hoped for. There was a closed door. But if he could just get at the control panel without breaking the invisibility field...

He'd just gotten the door coaxed into opening when one of the robots began shrilling behind him. For a moment, Brask thought he could just press himself against the wall and perhaps let everyone charge through the open door, thinking they were chasing him -- and then he realized, glancing over his shoulder, that the robot wasn't just looking at the door, but at the _floor_.

Time seemed to slow, as the armored guards pounded towards him. Brask looked down.

There was a white powder dusting the floor on either side of the open doorway. His footprints were obvious. His position, marked.

Snarling in rage and brief panic, he used his telekinesis to throw everyone back down the corridor, away from him. Then he darted through the door and smacked the controls on the other side to close it.

And then, in time-honored fashion, he drew his pistol and shot out the controls to keep the door shut. It took the field down, of course, but he'd have time now.

There. He'd re-establish the cloaking, wipe his feet off somewhere, get back into the robot-passages in the walls...

Footfalls made him look up from evaluating the powder on his boots.

Wild-eyed, Commander Ri turned into the corridor and halted there, staring at him. Her pupils, too wide to show her irises, contracted into slits. With a voice that made his skin crawl, she breathed, "You. Brought. Them."

And she advanced.

* * *

BB-9E-10 followed the Commander organic with unclear processes in its computational circuits.

Fact: Commander Ri had almost sliced BB-9E-10 in half.  
Fact: BB-9E-10 had been an unwilling missile attack at the time.

Fact: Commander Ri had been willing to damage BB-9E-10 to get at 10-of-30.  
Fact: 10-of-30 admitted they were intruders on the ship.  
Fact: The three '-of-30 cyborgs regretted the intrusion.  
Fact: It was the invisible organic intruder's fault they were there in the first place.

Fact: BB-9E-10 and the others were part of the Whole that made up the ship.  
Fact: Commander Ri commanded the ship.

Fact: Once, BB-9E-10 would have not thought anything about loyalty or duty.

Fact: BB-9E-10 did not want Commander Ri to think the cyborgs were an enemy, for the cyborgs had been helpful to the BB-units.

The Commander turned a corner, and BB-9E-10 hesitated a moment, lest it follow too closely and startle her.

Something whizzed across BB-9E-10's view in the intersection. As BB-9E-10 shrilled with alarm and rolled backwards, there was an explosion rolling out from the object's presumed landing spot.

The Commander, out of sight, laughed shrilly. "You think I'm _unarmed_? You think I'm as pathetically untrained as _you_?"

There was an incoherent shout, and BB-9E-10 rolled up to the edge of the cross-corridor and swiveled its sensor-component to see around.

Commander Ri and the intruder (not invisible at the moment) struggled together, with the intruder trying to keep her from clawing his face and large red eyes, while Commander Ri snarled and shifted her legs to prevent him from getting his boot around her knee.

They shifted and twisted in the hall, until Commander Ri showed all her teeth, snapping at the air, and the intruder began choking. Something else happened that BB-9E-10 couldn't parse -- for gravity was present, and thus no one should move that way -- and suddenly the intruder was flying past BB-9E-10 and down the corridor, to where the grenade had exploded and left scorched deckplates and darkened light-panels.

As Commander Ri stalked to where the intruder was clambering to his feet, BB-9E-10 rolled out and beeped loudly to get her attention.

Her expression was not promising, but BB-9E-10 opened its storage panel and extruded the contents. *For Commander!* it beeped, even though it knew she didn't understand binary.

Her eyes widened. Her snarl faded for a moment. She extended a hand -- and the lightsaber BB-9E-10 had carried flew into her palm. Her fingers closed around the weapon and BB-9E-10 rolled out of the way as the dangerous blade ignited.

Smiling, Commander Ri said, "And now, you filthy rat, you will die."


	28. Multitasking

* * *

It was a Starfleet thing to run towards explosions.

It was a Borg thing to be dissecting matters while on the move.

8All right, so we've got microbes.8

14Diagnostics suggest no modification to neural activity in the emotional and impulse control centers.14

10Neural activity during the mind-meld and at other times when we've been hearing things that, I suppose, we shouldn't normally hear. Because normally we would be hearing them with ears.10

8(elements, but I wish setek could be here) The question is whether the microbes are enabling the telekinetic and telepathic abilities, or if they're just... a thing.8

10I believe they're linked. But I'm not sure if it's causation or correlation. I think they might be why the ship became an AI, though...10

14Assimilating a ship with bio-nanites is against regulations as much as with regular nanites.14

10(what admiral kererek doesn't know won't make him sigh at me) I needed the nanites that were trying to scrub and herd the microbes, so I sent them off while they were still holding the microbes. That's pretty much the only difference in what I did with this ship and anything I'd done before with _Kinaen_. 10

8Ten, you've put neural nodes into _Kinaen_?! 8

10It helped with a search I was doing.10

14In any case, according to our shared data, the telekinetic abilities were evidenced despite scrubbing. While the microbes may yet have a synergistic effect, they seem to be correlating with, not causing, the abilities.14

Ten actually stumbled for a moment. 10I'm a fool. What if they're psychovores?10

8I don't think Fourteen's neural activity indicates she's _less_ telepathic now that she's stopped scrubbing them. 8

14Now that I know what the 'noises' are, I am having success interpreting them. Commander Ri has apprehended the Na'kuhl. The explosions are confirmation.14

In the near distance, another "confirmation" echoed.

10Plants are photovores, but they don't eat suns. If we're producing some form of psychic radiation, like sunlight, then the microbes could be popping out of subspace to feed on the radiation. We should keep an eye on the levels, though. They might hit a critical mass and start causing problems for the host. I hope they're not energy-being microbes.10

8I wish I had a plasma-sword like the Commander's.8

10It was her sword, so I couldn't keep it. It might even have had a name, for all I know. I don't know if _lightsaber_ is the generic or a proper noun. 10 Ten nodded firmly, and garnered acknowledging head-tilts from her sisters, who both had a memetic Romulan streak of their own. 

As they ran down a final hallway, no one needed telepathic abilities to pick up the shouting. Most was incoherent: bellows of rage and pain, shrill hunting cries, the sounds of weapons-fire, and the hum of the plasma-blade.

The BB-unit robot was there, sensor-component held parallel to the ground as it peered around the corner. Eight crouched beside it to do the same, broadcasting the visuals back for her sisters.

Commander Ri had her sword out and was -- in violation of several more laws of _something_ \-- parrying some of the shots the Na'kuhl fired. Then he aimed at a light-panel in the wall and the felinoid woman had to jump back to avoid the explosion.

He threw a grenade at her, and she directed it behind her with a wave of one hand. Eight _eep_ ed and flapped her hands at the thing to shoo it sideways, down a cross-corridor.

The grenade obliged, and exploded where hopefully no one else was.

10He's trying to kill her, looks like.10

14Agreed.14

8OH HEY LOOK THE GRENADE FLEW THATAWAY BECAUSE I WANTED IT TO AND I KNEW IT WOULD AND IT **DID** _Ten, what are you doing?!_ 8

Her Romulan sister stepped around her and into the corridor, jogging for where the combatants were, sword sheathed.

Eight said, "Augh!" and started to follow, with Fourteen hanging back to guard the rear.

Far too close to the fight, Ten stopped and raised one hand, nanoprobes extended.

She caught the Na'kuhl's eye. She waggled her fingers in a wave. Eight could have _sworn_ she heard her sister transmitting, _Hi, there._

The Na'kuhl shouted, "No!" There was a shockwave of air, staggering Commander Ri as it passed, lifting Ten off her feet. Eight braced herself, caught her sister -- who was _laughing_! -- and pulled her phaser. Maybe the feline Commander could parry shots from it, but the _Na'kuhl_ didn't have one of those lightsabers.

Flinging a grenade on the ground where you're standing only works if you aren't planning on standing there for long.

When the smoke cleared, the Na'kuhl was pelting down the hallway, towards an open doorway.

* * *

_Unchained_ was not inclined to swift decisions. Thought came in slow, rolling waves. Ripples collided, produced nuances, and the swift creatures that _Unchained_ hosted and was created by... Those acted. _Unchained_ didn't need to act on its own.

But, in Romulan philosophy, all things have a consciousness.

And a Will.

And ships are rarely neutral to their commanders.

* * *

Starting to run after the Na'kuhl, Eight had enough time to think _"that's odd"_ before he was at the doors.

Then.

The doors closed.

The Na'kuhl hadn't passed them.

For a moment, pinned in the doorway, he howled in what Eight _felt_ was anger and surprise, then panic. She _felt_ him try to shove the doors open telekinetically, _felt_ him try to push himself through.

The doors closed fully, with a ghastly noise.

The part that was left on their side was... something minds didn't want to make sense of, and iridium-based blood had sprayed against the walls. It dripped down them in amber streaks, and pooled on the floor.

The BB-unit emitted a low, unnerved _oowwwww-ooooo_ that didn't translate.

Slightly behind Eight, Ten said, "Yeah."

Commander Ri turned her head to look over her shoulder at them all. After a moment of silence, she said, flatly, "Your doing."

Eight thought about a sentient ship with, probably, opinions about grenades being flung around its innards. "Yeah."

The brown-furred woman continued to stand there, sword humming, but not attacking, either. "How. Will you. Be leaving."

Eight looked over her shoulder. "Fourteen?"

Fourteen said, "The Guardian should pull us back shortly after our mission is accomplished. So... soon. Ten, are you finished with the data-recovery on the injured robot?"

"Yes." Ten reached into her carry-pouch, and produced the battered sensor-and-personality unit. Then she looked up and at the mess of former Na'kuhl. Very clearly, she said, " _Um._ "

Eight caught the data transmission, looked forward again, and said, "Fvadt!"


	29. Resistance is Futile

* * *

Brask felt disoriented. Too tall. Furious at something. Perhaps furious that the Enemy was looking away from him. Looking back at those other wretched Enemies... Borg. He remembered the name. At least _they_ were staring at him.

Should they be staring at him? Was his cloaking field collapsed again?

He looked down.

For a moment, he didn't see his hand. Then he realized he was observing _through_ it. And then he realized what he was observing, that left a lake of Na'kuhl blood congealing on the floor.

The rage surged. He reached, instinctively, for a weapon he didn't have. _Reached_ again, and made one of the mangled arms twitch.

" _Fvadt!_ " the lead Borg said, and fired her phaser.

The weapon was set to disintegrate, and most of Brask's corpse expanded into component atoms, while Brask himself was unharmed.

Unharmed, but the disorientation was getting worse. Something was pulling at him, pulling him into a vast sea. For a moment, he turned his attention to it, and felt _peace_.

And dissolution. _No!_

He needed a body. He needed something to anchor himself against the pull of that vastness. He lunged for the closest one, the furred Enemy, and though she retreated before him -- he couldn't get _in_. He threw himself at the next, the Borg woman.

She had no shields.

It was like standing upon the bridge of an enemy ship, with full control at his fingertips -- but there were lockouts. He had to find her. Had to _space_ the Federation filth who'd deprived him of his victory.

Brask whirled, and she was there, indignant and swinging a giant slab of a sword at his head.

He stepped back and felt himself teetering on the brink of an airlock himself. No! He would not be defeated! Not again! Not ever again!

_You're just a drone!_ he snapped, and lunged for her. Grabbed her wrists, slammed them both against a wall. _You were made to be controlled!_

The bridge became blackness, became the center of a Borg ship, rows and rows and tiers of cubicles stretching into the darkness. He had the drone pinned into one. He snarled, _You will submit!_

The drone opened her blank charcoal eyes. _You think... you're a Borg King,_ came a whisper from all around them.

_Yes,_ he growled, with all the certainty of fury. _SUBMIT!_

Her gaze met his, and her eyes became a void, infinitely reflecting mirror to the blackness of the Borg cube around them. _You want to be the Will of the Collective?_ the whispers asked. And then the words slammed into him, chording from a thousand ghostly throats: _**Then BE the Collective!**_

He had a moment to think _(this is memory)_ before he was drowning in the thousands upon thousands of minds that whispered status, instruction, reports. Calculations forced their way into his thoughts, numbers streaming at the very edge of his ability to think, until  SHIELDS ADAPTED cut them off; immediately different allocations locked into place, of angles of fire, of navigation, damage, repair assignments, regrowth, losses, optimal replacement numbers...

**We are the Borg,** the voices chorded, and he felt his own throat among them.  **Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.**

**Resistance is futile.**

* * *

"What _is_ that!?" Alioth snarled as the translucent shape bounced off her shields and swarmed around and into the red-haired cyborg.

"Energy being!" said the smallest, white-haired one. ( _Ten_ , murmured the memory of her dive into the other one's mind.) She had one hand plunged into her carry-pouch, slung cross-body and resting at her side. The mangled BB-unit's component had fallen to the ground beside her.

Fourteen elaborated, unhelpfully, "Energy being, category alpha six." She moved her head to look at Alioth and added, "Alpha-class energy beings have recently evolved from previously corporeal species. Category six are apparently capable of possessing physical bodies. Na'kuhl don't _do_ this, normally."

"I didn't know anything but _Jedi_ made ghosts!" Alioth snapped back. She lifted her lightsaber, eying the third woman as she stood shock-still. "If that rat is going to control her..."

"Absolutely not," Ten stated. Her hand emerged, holding a tangle of oddly-shaped electronics. Then she knelt, her other palm flat against the deckplates. "Apologies, _Unchained_. I haven't the mass. I ask forgiveness."

"What--?!" Alioth said, and stepped forward. Fourteen moved between her and the other two, and though the cyborg's hands were empty, Alioth brought her saber to a defensive position and balanced warily on the balls of her feet. "What is she doing?"

"One may take a Borg out of the Collective," Fourteen said, wryly, "but you will not take away our habit of assimilating knowledge. She's apologizing to your ship for borrowing... Ah..."

Alioth stared as the floor-plate... blossomed. As if it were some living thing, a plant in swift motion, petals unfolded from the center, building up to knee-height in seconds, then the tips of each shot towards the ceiling, branching twigs meeting and joining with the thin pillars beside them. When they hit the ceiling, petals formed there as well, creating an organic-seeming metal cage.

" _Fvadt_ ," Fourteen commented, and Alioth sensed apprehension, exasperation, and admiration from her.

Ten placed the small mess of electronics into the center of the floor-petals and pulled her hand away as petals folded around it. Chartreuse lights spread out from that point, in swirls and coils, forming an evil glittering pattern on every surface.

The pattern did not, Alioth was embarrassingly relieved to note, go into the floor or ceiling. Whatever this was, it was contained. With strained politeness -- for the situation had not been made better, earlier, by attacking them -- Alioth said, "What is that."

"By extrapolation," Fourteen answered, "a cage for an energy being, the design of which she refused to hand over to Starfleet, because she didn't trust them to stop after they'd imprisoned the _hostile_ energy beings."

"Hypocritical," Alioth said.

Ten said, "Most sapients are. I don't let things possess my sister." Her tone was steel. Diamond. Something, Alioth thought with sudden perplexed interest, that would walk into the darkness in a heartbeat, if that was what it took to achieve her goals.

Idly, she said, "Jedi are supposed to be detached. Not let anger and fear have power over them."

"I am Borg and I am Romulan. Detaching me from the Collective is quite enough." (And she was channeling worry into anger into a cold calculation.)

The last cyborg -- _Eight_ , Alioth recalled -- twitched, flat-charcoal eyes focused on nothingness. Then she twitched again. Her lips moved, but Alioth couldn't make out what Eight might be saying.

Alioth murmured, "And will she be sane after this?"

Fourteen murmured back, "Neural activity is within... norms. Data-feed strongly suggests recoverable personality."

_Data feed?_ Alioth decided that the three cyborgs were too distracted to pose more of a threat than she could handle with her saber extinguished, and did so. Then she recalled that rat... that _Na'kuhl_ and his fondness for throwing things. She snapped her free hand's fingers at the BB-unit. "Droid, come here."

It did, without hesitation, and she used the Force to pull it up into her free arm. It beeped and rotated its sensors around, in minor alarm. "Hush," she told it. "If that thing escapes, I don't want it possessing you. My shields should protect you well enough."

It rippled through several beeps, staring up at her with the eye-like sensors. Then it moved the sensor-component to press against her shoulder, and cooed.

_Perhaps,_ Alioth Ri thought, _if the others are like this, we should leave the restraining bolts off. If the First Order is turning against the Knights of Ren, it would be easier to explain the matter to the droids than to reprogram the loyalty codes._

That it felt like a particularly heavy child was not any part of her reasoning.

Eight was swaying now, rocking back and forth in tiny movements. Her throat vibrated, a whispering hum coming from her lips. And, as they all watched, those lips curved into a feral smile. Low and intense, with strange echoes, she said, "You... thought you'd be a Borg King? Have a Latin name? _You're just another drone._ "

And the ghost tore itself away from her body, screaming.

The lights on the eldritch cage blazed, and Alioth didn't know if the ghost stumbled into it, or was somehow pulled. But then it was there, an indistinct form, beating on the forcefield that held it within the bars.

Eight staggered, panting, and sat down. With a glance in Alioth's direction, Fourteen moved to kneel beside her sister, putting a hand on the other cyborg's shoulder. Eight said, "He thought... be... the Will. Ha!" Her voice was just a voice, without the echoes of the possession.

With a distant chill, Ten said, "I wonder if there's a way to assimilate an energy being."

" _Ten!_ No!" the other two chorused.

"Ten, _ie_!" she replied, and thin black tentacles slid from her wrist into the cage.

"Ten! You don't want that!" Eight said, struggling to stand. "You don't know where it's been!"

"Where it wasn't invited!" Ten said, and then "Hey!" as her sisters pulled her away from the cage.

"Permitting assimilation of evolved Na'kuhl is a violation of Starfleet regulations," Fourteen said.

Eight sighed. "Too late."

Strands of metal -- if it even was metal anymore -- whipped out and into the cage's interior. Swiftly, the threads divided and divided again, hair-thin, forming... A mimicry of blood vessels, Alioth thought. Bones and blood, all in the shape of a humanoid. It moved. Raised a hand. Made a fist. Beat at the cage bars again.

"Now," Ten said. "What happens if all those little microbes are kept in contact with an energy being?"

Eight stared at the cage. "Te~en!" Then, in a horrified fascination, "How is that even _working_?"

"This universe has weird quantum physics. The microbes kept popping in from subspace and popping out again if they didn't like where I was herding them, so..." The small woman gestured at the cage. "Now they're held next to an energy source. We can find out what happens."

_You... you can't keep me in here,_ the ghost said. _Filthy Borg. Your nanites can't touch me._

Alioth said, "Her... _nanites_... appear to be giving you a body right now." She wondered if it would be a bad idea to poke the thing with her lightsaber. Probably.

_I cannot be held captive!_ the ghost insisted.

Ten dusted her gloved palms together. "I templated that off a device that had run for countless decades or even centuries, holding a prisoner within. _Unchained_ kindly permitted me to borrow some power to start it up, but now it's self-contained. Energy beings have energy, after all."

"Could you do that to a Jedi ghost?" Alioth asked, overcome by the surreality of the conversation.

The Na'kuhl ghost interrupted. _No. No, you're wrong. I can feel it. There's a way out._ The metal-spun form moved its head as if looking for something. _I still feel the ocean. It's all around. It doesn't care about this little trap._

Alioth drew in her breath. "The Force..."

Ten murmured, "The place in the Universe where the Elements are more pure..."

"Huh," Eight grunted, and bit her lip.

Fourteen arched her eyebrows and stepped forward, making a half-mocking bow. "By all means, then. Try," she invited the ghost.

_You think I can't?!_ it demanded. _It's calling. It's showing me the way. All I have to do..._ It seemed to take a breath. _All it takes to escape is to release and be at..._

_...peace..._

The webwork form stopped moving. The ghost's glow faded away. A few heartbeats later, so did the cage's force-field and lights.

Alioth carefully extended her senses, wincing slightly as she encountered the trio's unshielded emotions. But the Na'kuhl ghost...

...was gone.

The others, she felt, were making similar attempts to detect the former spirit. Untrained and fumbling like kits, but clearly powerful ones.

She wanted _them_ gone.

Out loud, she said, "This thing in my corridor. Does it leave with you?"

"Um," said Ten. She moved forward, unhindered by her sisters, and inserted her wrist-tendrils into the cage briefly again. It began shrinking, being re-absorbed back into the ship. Ten said, somewhat ceiling-ward, "Thank you, _Unchained_."

Alioth said, in roughly the same direction, "Why is she thanking my ship?"

Eight replied, firmly, "Romulan theology."

Alioth sighed, gently set down the BB-unit droid, and leaned against the wall. The ship's subliminal vibration was, despite or perhaps because of the bloody mess behind her, soothing. With another sigh, she told them, "You lot somehow made my ship into a giant droid."

All three of them looked abashed, though Fourteen tried to hide it with a stiff spine and a pose nearly at military attention. The BB-unit whistled and beeped, somehow apologetic.

Ten coughed into her glove. "Ah, BB-9E-10 says that _Unchained_ is very... um, fair and logical, and..." She listened to more beeping. "That he is concerned with the safety of the crew and his commander."

Eight added, perhaps as an attempt at distraction, "Romulans use 'he' for ships."

Alioth would have liked to have screamed, _What have you lot done to my ship?!_ But she was, in truth, too tired. And it was obvious. "You could... un-do it?"

Ten paused, and her expression was a match to her unshielded emotions. Regretfully, she nodded. "I didn't mean to make him any kind of sapient in the first place," she said. "I apologize."

As the cyborg lifted her hand towards the wall, Alioth said... "Wait."

Fourteen said, quietly, "The Guardian at the Edge of Forever--" (and Alioth could hear the capital letters) "--may pull us back at any moment now. We need to return things to how we found them."

Her smallest sister's hand trembled, and that one gray eye watched Alioth.

And Alioth thought of ships, and loyalty, and concern. And how, in truth, the Knights of Ren were more powerful when they were working together. Fingers could be broken, but a fist could strike a blow.

So she sighed again and said, " _Unchained_ isn't hostile to... his crew?"

There were more beeps from the BB-unit. Ten said, "He's... a little unclear on the boundaries between himself and crew. Including the droids. I think it's like... you can know that your heart is a distinct thing, but you still need something to transport oxygen and nutrients to your cells."

"Mm." Alioth stayed leaning against the wall.

Footfalls sounded from the cross-corridor behind, and a trio of BB-units rolled into view, halting in disarray as they saw the cyborgs and Alioth. The droid with them -- BB-9E-10, the cyborg had said -- began beeping what were clearly explanations. Meanwhile, a squad of troopers, some with grenade-burn marks on their armor, came thundering around the corner. They stopped with similar disarray, and leveled their weapons at the cyborgs as best they could without aiming at Alioth.

Alioth lifted a hand. "At ease." She eyed the three... Borg, and decided where her advantages were. "They're just about to be leaving."

Despite not having eyes, Fourteen clearly rolled hers. Ten smiled at Alioth. Eight looked thoughtful.

And then there was a ripple in the air, a whisper in the Force, and they were gone.

Fortunately, the troopers had raised their blasters out of aim, as one shot the ceiling in surprise. Alioth winced, patted the wall, and said, "A mistake. I'm sure they'll help fix it."

A ship was too large to be intimidated into obedience. But it was also, apparently, too alien to _want_ to defy her, or control her itself.

Himself.

Alioth Ri could live with keeping her ship happy, she thought. She straightened up and said, "The intruders are dead or gone. The other side of that door is probably worse." She jerked her thumb in the direction of the pool of amber blood. "We need a clean-up crew for that, and as I said, whoever shoots the ship has to help repair the ship. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" the troopers chorused, standing at attention.

"Good." She flipped a hand at them, shooing them out of her way, and half-way past them, decided... "And good work, everyone. We'll have to make sure the dead one didn't leave any traps anywhere, but you all flushed him out of hiding. Well done."

"Thank you, Commander!" the squad's leader said, and she felt their pleasure and relief.

So she nodded, smiled, and went on. The droids beeped to each other behind her, and Alioth Ri decided she was going to need to learn binary after all.


	30. Epilogue

_And on a deserted world of ruins and an ancient entity, three sisters hugged each other before beaming to their respective ships, to craft reports for their respective superiors._

_The matter of the unexpected energy being was heavily elided in all those reports, and buried deeply in the section on Violations Of Regulations And Physics in Fourteen's._

_The section on the 'microbes' and temporary telekinetic and telepathic abilities, in Ten's report, was quickly filed in Admiral Kererek's top secret database, heavily encrypted. The admiral himself set a bottle of ale on his desk after reading it._

_Meanwhile, Eight's document was full of enough snarky comments about "time cops" and "bad ideas" that Admiral Quinn just filed it mostly un-read, and trusted Fourteen's version would be good enough._

\--Roll the credits--


	31. Author's Notes

As noted, this is based off of Black Tide... in a skew sort of way, and due to a glancing comment on Twitter a few months back (as of this writing). As threatened, I can apparently only write crackfic reliably when playing in someone else's sandbox.

_Obviously_ , this is not "canon" for Black Tide. ...whether it's canon for the Borg of Star Trek Online series I'm doing is up in the air. Probably not. Unless I get a great idea that requires it. *holds a halo-on-a-stick over her head*

I have used the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO's treatment of Sith ghosts, aligning this with a line in Black Tide by virtue of "hey, there've been only 2 Sith wandering around for some time now; _everyone_ forgot who did ghosts first." I have used the Star Trek MMO's treatment of many attack powers, adjusted for "realism." I have used the fast-nanite growth evidenced from the Borg episode of _Star Trek: Enterprise_ , and in the fan-film _Star Trek: Renegades_. (See Wikipedia and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE2Wgop9VLM for more on _Renegades_ ; I'm a sucker for anything with a Liberated Borg in it, and it's got some interesting ideas, even if the fight scene choreography needs a re-do in many places.) Ten's ranged weapon vanishes entirely when not in use, in the game, so I figure it's gotta be nanites dissolving and re-creating it as needed.

https://sto.gamepedia.com/Borg_Prosthetic_-_Maintenance_Drone

For Na'kuhl...  
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Na%27kuhl_Lieutenant

https://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Hyperonic_Radiation  
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Plasma_Grenade  
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Biotoxin_Cloud  
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Out_of_Phase_Time

I attempted to justify the "Out of Phase Time" ability as a time-travel tweak, grabbing alternate selves from a parallel universe that evaporates as soon as it's done. Or similar temporal technobabble.


End file.
